


what's real or isn't

by brawlite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Descriptions of gore, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, Existential Horror, Losing Time, M/M, Marking, Masturbation, Monster Kylo Ren, Monster sex, Rimming, Voyeurism, a vague and disconcerting level of domestic fluff and sweet pastries, ambiguous ending i guess but not really?, hux is an unreliable narrator, hux lives in a haunted house -- kinda, hux makes a lot of crepes, knives/sharps, liminal spaces, minus the ghosts, sleep sex basically, tentacles kind of, the trio comes in at the epilogue, the twisting and contortion of reality itself, this is a ghost story, void blowjobs, weird dicks, wow these tags are definitely a rollercoaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:06:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7124206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawlite/pseuds/brawlite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux's new house is not haunted. It <i>isn't.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> heavily inspired by [ocktorok](http://ocktorok.tumblr.com)'s [southern comfort](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5777599/chapters/13315243), _house of leaves_ , and also personal experiences.

_what’s real or isn’t real doesn’t matter here._  
_The consequences are the same._  
-mark z. danielewski -  house of leaves

\--

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hux says into the endless darkness, because he has no other words, no further sentiment to share. This nonsense is utterly and absolutely impossible -- and also terribly inconvenient. He will not stand for it.

The darkness says nothing in return.

Hux leaves it, for a time: there is no use arguing into the night with something that is not there.

\--

A door slams at three in the morning. The sudden noise of it yanks Hux straight out of the dead of sleep. The surprise fades from his bones quickly; unfortunately, it’s not the first time a door has banged shut in his new home in the middle of the night.

The room around him is muted, quiet, and still unfamiliar to him. It feels untouchable and unreal, still coated with the murky fog of sleep. The faint light of the streetlamps filters in through sheer curtains, draping the room in ethereal blue. It falls over his belongings like a gentle touch, pulling his surroundings into the enchantment of the night. The only thing that feels remotely tangible is the rhythmic cadence of his breathing in this soundless place, and even that is muffled, just out of reach.

Despite the quiet stillness, the slam of the door still echoes in his ears. Sharp and high and sudden.

“God dammit.” He sighs, finding the energy to languidly peel the blankets from over his body, freeing himself so that he can investigate. The air of the room is neither warm nor cold as it caresses his skin, and yet he is acutely aware of it. It’s thick, heavy, and laced with static energy.

It’s strange. This whole house is strange, if he’s being honest. Most of the time, Hux pretends not to notice. It’s far more sane than the alternative.

He doesn’t see the way light shimmers in odd ways or how shadows dance out of the corner of his eye. The shadows themselves are always too dark, too long, and often creeping into places they shouldn’t be. He refuses to see it. He cannot acknowledge it. He doesn’t feel the way the walls vibrate underneath his fingertips, or more acutely under a steady palm. The house cannot be breathing or trembling, cannot be anything other than solid plaster, studs, and nails. He most certainly does not hear voices whispering from the too-dark shadows, or worse yet, something speaking softly in his ear at night. It’s irrational. Absurd.

But, in the dead of early morning, with this eerie quality of light and the stillness of the air, it’s difficult to forget. It’s the sort of thing he cannot banish from his head when his thoughts are still cloudy with the impossibility of dreams.

He sits uncovered in bed for a moment, with the sheets bunched around his feet, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of the foreign room.

Hux bought the property a month ago and moved in two weeks prior to today. Everything about the house and the process of purchasing it had been exceedingly and impressively average. The price was neither exorbitantly high nor worrisomely low; negotiations had gone off without a single hitch; and there were an average number of repairs to undertake before he moved in -- nothing out of the ordinary. Everything had progressed smoothly, normally, and simply.

When he had first set foot inside the house, he was reminded of the deafening feeling of walking into the sanctuary of a church. A certain quiet stillness existed inside e in the same way it did under stained glass and century-old arches. It was startlingly peaceful, yet mildly overbearing. Like the steady press of humidity on a hot summer’s day. Other than that feeling, which was not altogether unpleasant, nothing rang out as noteworthy about the house. Hux bought it because it suited his needs and purposes: not because of some romantic love for it, or anything childish like that.

It was just a house, like any other.

It is a small row house in a line of similar houses, nothing to look twice at but pleasant nonetheless. According to the real estate agent (and some subsequent research on Hux’s part), the neighborhood in which it stands had been built after the Second World War for both veterans and government workers alike -- close enough to the Nation’s Capital for an easy commute -- far enough away for cheap land. Now, the land isn’t so cheap and the commute isn’t so easy -- but it works. The house was in Hux’s budget and it didn’t need much work -- so he bought it. And he hasn’t looked back.

Not really, anyway.

He slides out of bed, letting his bare feet touch the newly refinished floors. He cannot help the small hint of satisfaction he feels at the smoothness of the wood underneath his feet. New. Fresh. He lets out a sigh and pads his way out of the room through the open doorway of the master bedroom. The house had been remodeled before he bought it -- opened up, carved out, like many of its relatives. The remodeling leaves only a few doorways still existing to have slammed themselves in the night: three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and a door to the basement downstairs.

Of course, all the doors on the top level are still wide open.

Hux makes his way downstairs in the dim light provided by nearby street lamps. He moves through the living room and then the kitchen, and comes face to face with the closed door to the basement. He takes a measured breath. Of course he left it open -- he leaves all doors open. Keeping them closed makes the house feel smaller, darker -- and more stifling.

This door-closing nonsense has happened before, and Hux is growing tired of playing games with his house.

He grips the handle and opens the door in a decisive movement, his limbs no longer cloudy with sleep. The darkness of the stairs leading underground is a void in which his eyes cannot focus, and yet he looks anyway. He sees nothing.

He knows he perhaps should investigate. He should make sure there is no home invader seeking solace in his basement while Hux roams the house, waiting to venture out when Hux goes back to sleep, but he does move downstairs. There is no one in the basement: Hux is sure of it. Instead, he calls it a night and heads back toward his room and the comforting warmth of his own bed.

He makes it halfway up the stairs before the door slams again. The hair on the back of his neck bristles and annoyance sparks in his chest. He spins on his heel in a way that resembles the movements he learned in the military household in which he grew up, and marches back down the stairs and into the kitchen.

With nothing short of exasperation, he grips the handle of the door and yanks it open again. He glares into the darkness that he finds exposed: it is just as normal as before, just as empty. Nothing has changed.

“Enough.” Hux spits, his eyes narrowed into the void as if he can stare it down. “ _Enough_ ,” he repeats, about-facing and making his way back upstairs. He refuses to acknowledge how asinine it is to be commanding the shadows of his house at three in the morning. If he doesn’t think about it, it isn’t happening and he doesn’t have to ever acknowledge it again.

The door is still open in the morning.

\--

Hux eats his dinner at a place setting for one at a small table he has set up in his main room. One of the iterations of previous owners tore out most the walls on the main level of the house, creating a breezy kitchen that opens out to a modest living space. There is no real dining room, no formal living room -- just one multi-purpose open space attached to the kitchen. The large room looks out into a small back yard. Some of the houses have balconies, depending on their situation -- his has a sliding door that opens to an uneven stone patio and a patch of overgrown garden that more so resembles a thicket than a man-made alcove. In what he can only refer to as the living room, he has a couch and a dining table. He also has a tower of boxes in the corner of the room: mostly books, to go on bookshelves he doesn’t yet own.

Each day, he eats dinner alone.

He prepares the meal for himself and eats at around eight each evening at a place setting for one. While he cooks, the house shifts and settles around him, always near-constant in its quiet noises. The light in the kitchen is bright and yellow, and still the shadows creep in from the corners while Hux moves about and fills the space with delicious aromas. Sage and curry and pomegranates and mushrooms -- each day, something different. Each day, another recipe to try. Each day, the noises of his new home home keep him company while he cooks.

While he eats dinner, the house is respectfully quiet. Hux appreciates that, in a house.

\--

Hux cannot rightfully or in good conscience believe that his new home is haunted. He does not believe in ghosts, spirits, or anything of the like. It is simply preposterous. For a long time, he thinks of any excuse to make up for the noises, the slammed doors, the whispering. Wind. An unsteady foundation. Rowdy or mischievous neighbors.

Perhaps he is imagining all of it.

However, he cannot deny that it is also more comforting to believe that his house is interesting than the theory that he may be slowly losing his grip on reality. It is a disconcerting thought and one he does not appreciate dwelling on. So, upon reviewing just about every potential possibility, he finally acknowledges the more intriguing features of his home, accepts them as fact, and then moves on.

It’s all a very practical way of handling it, he thinks.

\--

Arguing with his house becomes second nature by the first month.

There are a lot of slammed doors, overturned stacks of papers, and a few glasses pushed off countertops. Hux cannot stop himself from retaliating with annoyed words or palms slammed into the wall in frustration.

It is moderately shameful.

It’s also terribly satisfying. It is especially so at the end of a tough day: he always seems to win most of the arguments. He can’t be sure, but the sense of satisfaction and the lack of ‘counter-arguments’ speak to his small victories.

\--

Hux enjoys documentaries about war. They hit an aching, empty spot inside him. Filling it, if only momentarily. Any war will do, though he does have his favorites. World War II. Vietnam. The documentaries about technological ingenuity during wartime are also fascinating, though often rather rote and somniferous. He often puts the television on after dinner, letting the noise fade into the background while he finishes up work on his laptop. He’s seen most of the decent documentaries at least once, but he doesn’t mind the repetition. It’s educational.

Tonight, however, he finds a documentary about haunted castles in Ireland. It comes up in his _suggestions_ menu. He thinks it’s an absolutely ridiculous subject to have a documentary on, but he’s feeling a bit indulgent -- especially given his living situation, and the fact that he ignored the basement door slamming three times the previous night, even when he never bothered to open it back up again. It must have felt so vehemently about the ritual that it opened itself up enough to slam back shut again and again and again. Hux doesn’t like to project sentience on his house -- but sometimes, he just cannot help it.

He has no work the next day, no reports to finish at home, and no reason to not watch something trite. It’s a change, and what harm could it do? It’s not like there’s anyone around to judge him.

He puts the documentary on. It begins with aerial shots of the country -- beautiful and breathtaking. His heart momentarily aches for the land where he spent years of his childhood, but that too is frivolous and wanting. He’s here now, settled and in his own home. He is content.

He is still content when the television turns itself off five minutes into the program. Content, but also annoyed.

Hux turns the TV back on, only to have it flip immediately off.

“Stop that,” he says to what is surely a short circuit. Or perhaps a power flare. He has gotten so accustomed to speaking out loud that it’s almost second nature. The only reason he does it in the first place is that it yields the best results, even if it is pure coincidence. It cannot be anything else.

The room darkens when he turns the television back on. The lights flicker. Hux scowls and keeps his finger over the power button: ready. “Enough,” he says, command and annoyance lacing through his voice. The television dims, brightens, and then promptly turns itself off. Curious -- typically by the time he has ordered something to do as he says, it bends to his whims. Evidently this is not the case with the television. Or perhaps, the program specifically. There are a few more rapid succession rounds of off-and-back-on-again before Hux slams his palm down on the coffee table. The noise echoes sharply into the quiet of the room.

He turns the television on again, and the screen glows white, movie nowhere to be seen.. The light of it is impossibly bright. Other than the illumination from the TV, the entire room is bathed in darkness around him, even though he could have sworn he had the lights on at the beginning of this charade. The shadows at the edges of the room are so dark that he can barely see the walls.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hux sighs. He tries pulling the documentary back up to no avail: pressing any of the buttons on the remote does nothing, even the power button. The screen stays aggressively white and unchanging.

 ** _Awful_** , something whispers from the shadows.

The word bounces around in his head, echoing in every voice he has ever heard, all at once. His ears are playing tricks on him, they must be. His eyes, too. It cannot be so dark in the room -- it is simply his eyes having trouble adjusting from the light of the TV. Too much contrast.

Just to be safe, he finds himself replying, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” Because perhaps he has gone crazy after all.

When his heart stops racing, he turns the television off and back on again, and everything works perfectly.

\--

Hux begins to entertain the possibility of his house actually being haunted, opposed to it simply being interesting. Even if he thinks the idea of ghosts is absolutely absurd.

He watches more documentaries about hauntings out of spite.

\--

Sometimes, Hux wakes up in the middle of the night with the uncanny feeling of being watched. He cannot place it, cannot find the source in his dark but empty room. It’s not a feeling he’s encountered before in his life -- but he is well acquainted, now.

In the early mornings, a few hours past midnight, the shadows of his room draw long and dark over his floor. The light creeping in the window wanes and dims, and the darkness of his room turns fuzzy, static. It’s otherworldly, there is no other way to describe it. When Hux wakes at three in the morning and finds his room dimmer and darker than it should be, he wills himself to close his eyes and go back to sleep. On some mornings, he will briefly let his eyes roam the shadows, checking for some unknown presence to blame for his consciousness, for the tingling on the back of his neck. He always finds nothing. Other mornings, he cannot bring himself to look into the corners of his room until the light of dawn.

\--

Two months in has most of Hux’s belongings unpacked and in their proper places. There are, of course, multiple boxes of junk that he has little intention of ever unpacking, but also has zero intention of throwing away. There are always those boxes -- they are an impossible side-effect of moving. They end up being relegated to the basement, stacked precariously in a corner of the storage area and left hopefully to be untouched for years. Of course, that means Hux needs something from one of them almost instantaneously.

He pads down to the basement on socked feet. The basement is finished, but barely. It’s not necessarily an unfriendly place -- but there’s not much use to it. Hux has no need for another room, so he has left it mostly empty. Upstairs there are three small bedrooms: one is the master bedroom, one is a designated guest bedroom, and the other he has converted into a study. He has no use for another room, other than for storage -- and even that, he keeps in a storage area. So, the main area of the basement is simply left empty. White walls, white carpet, and fluorescent lighting: it’s not the most inviting of places -- but it’s not particularly unfriendly either. Despite the near-nightly door slamming that persists regarding the door, there is nothing about the basement that catches Hux as extraordinarily odd. It seems strange, given all the documentaries he has watched: basements seem to be the most prolific of places for hauntings. Even so, he cannot bring himself to feel at all strange about the bottom floor of his house.

Hux pries open a few boxes, eventually finding the specific one he’s looking for at the bottom of one of the towers. It’s heavy -- full of old books and picture frames, as well as stacks of old family records. It’s a lot to sort through to find what he needs, so he decides to take it upstairs so that he can spread out its contents over the kitchen table.

He hoists the large box into his arms and shuffles toward the stairs. He carefully takes them one step at a time, remembering that he is taking wooden stairs with slippery socked feet. His ascent is slow, but mostly without issue. He’s about four steps from the top when his foot slips suddenly and he overcorrects, body misjudging his movements with the weight of the box cradled in his arms. The moment is a long one, stretched out and unending: he knows there is no way to save himself -- he is already falling backwards, angled past the point of no return. His breath catches in his throat and he prepares himself for the inevitable pain of falling backwards down the stairs with a heavy box to his ribs.

And yet --

He doesn’t fall. The pain never comes. Impossibly, he stays at an angle at which he knows he cannot possibly support himself. It takes him a split second to feel the press of what feels unmistakably like a hand, solid and firm, right in the middle of his back -- holding him up, keeping him from falling. Hux swallows. There is no need to turn; he knows there is no one behind him holding him up. And yet, he is being held -- he is not falling.

He stays there for a moment, angled impossibly and being supported by something he cannot see. For longer than he’d like, he is frozen in something he refuses to call fear.

From there, it is easy to right himself, to arch forward and stand and make his way up the rest of the stairs. The hair on the back of his neck is standing straight up. Goosebumps cascade down his spine. He does not turn around. He cannot.

Later, while he’s cooking dinner in the kitchen, he mutters a quiet _thank you_ in the direction of the basement.

Just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

Hux is exhausted when it first happens.

He’s running days without sleep with only work to blame. Government contracting: what a glamorous job. He is overtired and overworn. Reality is threaded too thin between each space he finds himself in -- everything just a hairsbreadth out of reach and intangible. He keeps clipping walls, misjudging distances, dropping things. When he first catches something dark and moving out of the corner of his eye, he instantly writes it off as fatigue. His mind is playing tricks on him. It’s happened before. It happens to everyone.

The second time -- same night, right after dinner -- he also writes it off. Pushing it to a corner of his mind.

The third time, he cannot brush it off. His mind won’t let him.

He is washing dishes at the kitchen sink with the basement door to his back. Over the running water and the clink of cutlery against porcelain, he can hear the telltale squeak of the door moving. Closing, slowly.  He freezes, faint pinpricks of goosebumps spilling down his arms. The noise stops. He half turns, unwilling and perhaps unable, to face the basement door directly. Instead, he stares in the space three feet to the left of it, looking at the hollow of the basement’s entrance out of the corner of his eye.

He does not like what he sees.

There is the rectangle of shadow of the door as he was expecting it. Yet, inside that darkness is something even darker -- a form. It shouldn’t be possible for anything to be darker than the absence of light, but it very much is. It is so impossibly pitch black, darker than anything he has ever seen or imagined. He can very clearly see the outline of _something_ standing tall in the doorway. Hunched, slightly, like an animal. Lanky and long-limbed. Formless, and yet -- with form.

There is also no doubt that it is staring directly back at him.

He knows this instinctively, as easily as he knows how to breathe.

His heartbeat pounds in his chest, blood rushing through his veins. He cannot stop his body from reacting to an instinctual fear of the unknown, of a potential predator.

He also cannot bite back the curiosity he feels lurking behind that fear: the overwhelming desire to know more, to look, to see -- even though all of his instincts are screaming at him to flee, to never turn his head.

The thing, whatever it is, starts moving in his peripheral vision. It begins shifting slowly from side to side, rocking in a way Hux cannot describe as anything but predatorial. It leans forward smoothly, so tall, so very clearly visible, until it is inching its way from the doorway, bringing the shadows along with it. The entire kitchen darkens around him. Hux’s blood curdles and thickens in his veins like spoiled milk.

There is definitely something there -- he is sure of it.

When he was young he used to be scared -- but each of his fears had a name and had a face. They were identifiable. It was easy to bite back those fears as he grew older, as he grew more capable of taking care of himself. When he was old enough to fight back, he was no longer scared. Since then, he has had nothing to fear, enough so that the feeling is startlingly foreign to him now.

However, he does remember how to stomp down on fear, how to bite it back and push it into a box along with any other inconvenient feeling he’s ever had. He remembers how to swallow, to breathe, and how to steady himself. Without any warning, he turns his head to look directly at the doorway to the basement, eyes leveled with where he can only imagine eyes would be on the form that he sees.

There is nothing in the doorway.

The light of the kitchen shines bright enough that he can see the entire staircase as it descends into the shadows of the basement below. Empty. Normal.

\--

Hux catches himself staring more intently at the shadows of his home. When he climbs the stairs, he passes his palm over the wall next to him and feels the house vibrate underneath his fingertips. Sometimes, it feels as if the house itself is pulsing. Sometimes, startlingly, it is totally and utterly still.

On occasion, Hux finds himself exploring his house, walking around in bare feet from room to room, solely because the air around him feels _normal,_ empty. It’s all very strange. He would think, with a haunted house, there would be no breaks, no off-days. But there are. There is no rhyme or reason to them -- some days the house is simply quiet.

Sometimes, it feels so deserted that he finds himself feeling more alone than he like to admit.

He doesn’t understand.

\--

When the weather grows nicer, he buys a table and two chairs (for the sake of appearances only, if he’s being honest with himself) and begins to take his morning coffee outside on the rickety patio. There are overgrown fences on either side of his yard, bracketing him in from his neighbors’ gardens. It creates a nice little enclave of space. There is a nearby Magnolia tree flowering, one of its branches hanging partway over Hux’s yard. The pastel petals from the tree’s flowers scatter over his patio, land haphazardly on his table, and drift around his feet in the subtle breeze. A few wildflowers bloom in the overgrown mess that is the green space in his garden, though he cannot recognize any by name or by smell.

Hux is reading his paper, drinking lukewarm coffee, when he is suddenly and acutely aware that he is not alone. It’s a feeling he’s gotten used to over the past few months. It no longer has the hairs on the back of his neck rising every time, but it still has him looking over at his house with a puzzled expression.

Nothing.

It’s a long moment before he looks back at his paper and at the table. Movement catches his attention, and his eyes immediately focus and narrow at the chair across from him -  now inhabited by a sleek orange cat with piercing yellow eyes. Hux blinks. He had not been expecting that, which is a surprise in and of itself. He should be more startled by his resignation toward encountering the unexplainable than he is startled by a cat. But, it’s still the cat that surprises him.

“Hello,” He can’t help himself. Talking to animals is an ingrained human instinct he cannot break himself of. He doesn’t necessarily enjoy talking to people, but he has always been rather fond of cats. “Where did you come from?”

He glances around the back garden, though it provides few suggestions in its plethora of options. The cat doesn’t seem unhealthy or mangy. It’s clean, but it doesn’t have a collar. Most likely, it jumped the fence and is simply passing through.

Hux goes back to reading his paper. When he looks back up ten minutes later, the cat is still there. Thirty minutes, and the cat is contentedly curled up on the chair opposite him. Sound asleep in the mild sunshine. Eventually, Hux finishes the paper and moves to head inside. The cat uncurls itself, stretches, and hops off the chair to wind around his feet. “Not feral then, I see,” he muses, folding the paper under his arm as he moves toward his door, doing his best to not step on small paws. He has no intention of letting the cat inside his house, but when he opens the door the small animal skirts around his legs and dashes inside before Hux has any chance of stopping it.

The cat is gone by the time he steps inside, likely hiding somewhere in the bowels of his house. He resigns himself to finding it later -- when it wants to be found. He’s done enough chasing shadows as of late; he’s not chasing after a cat, too.

He finds it a couple hours later, sitting patiently at the top of the basement steps. It’s staring down into the darkness.

“There you are,” he sighs. He expects the cat to turn, to move -- at least for an ear to twitch in his direction. Instead, it stays as still as a statue, eyes fixated on some place halfway down the stairs in the mid-distance. It really would be far less disconcerting if its gaze was fixated lower. Instead, it stares at what would be something standing tall near the bottom of the staircase.

Hux has no real desire to step any closer at the moment. He knows the feeling of fear nipping at his ribcage is ludicrous and childish, but he cannot put it away. “Cat,” he says, trying to sound less pleading then he feels. “Cat, come here.”

The cat does not move.

It must be a trick of his ears, when he hears the echo of a low whisper from down the steps: **_Cat, come here_ ** _._ It doesn’t matter if the voice is in Hux’s head: every hair on his body stands on end and he immediately feels nauseated with fear.

It does not help that the cat finally moves, tilting its head. It raises a tentative paw.

“No, no, absolutely not.” Hux dives forward for the cat in a show of uncharacteristic care, and snatches it into his arms before it can venture into the basement. Not because he heard anything down there, but because it would be an absolute pain to try and fish the cat out from behind stacks and stacks of boxes. He’d never see it again.

The small beast doesn’t struggle much -- it simply makes itself cozy in his arms while Hux closes the basement door.

The cat stays through dinner. When Hux opens the door for it to leave later, it refuses to exit. He even attempts to pick it up and deposit it outside, but it simply races him back in. Finally, he relents. He feeds it a can of tuna and resolves to buy a couple cans of cat food the next day.

Hux keeps the basement door closed for the rest of the night.

\--

He names the cat Millicent.

The name suits her, somehow. She’s an interesting combination of mischievous and serious, but from what Hux has seen in cats, that seems reasonably par for the course. It’s mostly just nice to have another living thing around the house, if only so that he can blame any middle-of-the-night noises on her. When he feels like he’s being watched or followed he can blame the cat -- even if she’s curled up next to him on the couch. Somehow, it makes everything a bit more bearable. She seems to enjoy documentaries -- and Hux even deigns to throw in a few about animals so that she can watch them pounce around on the television screen.

At night, she curls up next to his head and purrs away until he finds sleep.

She still has an unnerving habit of sitting stock-still at the top of the basement stairs and staring down into the void below, but he ignores that with consideration for his own sanity.

She never does go into the basement, though.

\--

Hux works as a contractor for the government. His schedule has shifted over time, out of practicality, to have him working mostly from home. He doesn’t mind -- this way, he doesn’t have to fight through the morning and evening commutes into the city. It does mean that he spends a frightful amount of time contained in his own home. Well -- he supposes it should be frightful, anyway. He’s meant to want to leave, theoretically. But despite all of its eccentricities, his house is rather comfortable. He enjoys the extra time he spends there, though he does often find himself leaving during the lunch hour. Working lunches with a few of his other working-from-home colleagues are a nice excuse to get out, and they leave him feeling like he’s made an effort to socialize. If he doesn’t go with them, he still makes a point to leave for the nearby grocery store or restaurants for lunch.

He always enjoys returning home, though. With each passing day, the place feels more welcoming. To some extent, he has grown used to the irregularities of his home, which he supposes is rather useful, given that he lives there and has little desire to move.

Whenever he arrives home, Millicent greets him at the door. On occasion, she meets him outside. On those days, she trots happily along inside after him, meowing hungrily by his feet. He’s never sure how she gets outside, as he leaves every door and window closed and locked -- but without fail she is outdoors at least once a week when he arrives home.

After one too many times of catching her outside, he resolves to check the basement for holes, as he doesn’t want anything unwanted coming inside via the same avenue she takes to get out. Rats, opossums -- he shudders at the possibilities.

“You are a nuisance, Millicent,” he sighs, stooping down to pat her velvety head. She has only been with him a short time, but Hux has grown rather fond of her. He doesn’t have many friends in the area. Overlooking his brief lunches with colleagues, his main interactions are with the ginger tabby and with his house. He tries not to dwell too much on the latter in terms of his life; when the ‘haunted’ nonsense is not currently happening, he is still relatively convinced that it’s all in his head. It must be. It’s a little harder to write off, however, when he’s playing tug-of-war with a door at three in the morning.

That was how he spent the previous night, anyway.

Now, in the light of day, it all seems so unbelievable, like it was all a dream.

Hux grabs a flashlight from a kitchen cabinet and turns it on -- bright light, good batteries. “What do you say, Millie? We go figure out where you’ve been escaping from?” He moves towards the basement and turns the light on before he looks back at the cat, who is standing in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Come on, this is your house, too.” He won’t tolerate his cat’s irrational disinclination toward the basement. After all, strange things happen all over his house -- even if the lowest level seems to be the focal point of it all.

Millicent trots toward him -- and proceeds to make her claw-filled way up his trousers and his shirt, to finally perch atop his shoulders as she often does. “Ouch,” Hux mutters, but he supposes it’s better than nothing. He won’t allow himself to feel a little relieved that he’s venturing into the basement with company -- that would be absurd.

With the lights on, the basement is an exceedingly average open-space. White-washed and character-less. Hux passes through it and heads toward the small and unfinished storage area. There is only one rickety lightbulb in the storage alcove and it doesn’t provide much light, so Hux uses the beam of the flashlight to investigate the dark ceiling. Slowly, he makes his way around the space, inspecting every nook and cranny, feeling not even one hint of unease.

It’s when he’s almost done that he notices just how dark it has grown around him. He had turned on plenty of lights, but it’s quite shadowy, now -- much darker than when he started. With a hint of unease, he looks up at the bulb swinging lazily above him: it’s so dim that it’s almost out, and it’s growing dimmer by the second. There is a dreadful sinking sensation in his stomach. He cannot look away from the light -- and so he watches as it fades out completely.

Hux is left in the darkness with only the light from his flashlight.

“Ridiculous,” he says into the void around him, because he cannot think of anything else to do. The bulbs must have died at the same time, or perhaps his power surged and he blew a fuse.

 **_Ridiculous_ ** , he hears the word echo in his ears, hushed and strange and reverberating all around him. For a moment he cannot be sure that it was anything other than his own thoughts repeating in the way they often can -- but he cannot ignore the way Millicent’s claws dig instantly into the flesh of his shoulder. She is stiff and scared, and hunkered down very close to the warmth of Hux’s body.

Hux freezes.

There is silence settling heavy all around them, enough so that the sound of his own breathing is near-deafening. He doesn’t move, simply letting himself listen to the sounds of his house. There is only the soft cadence of his and Millicent’s quiet breaths, and the occasional creak of the structure around them. Nothing out of the ordinary. No reason to work himself up into a panic. His heartbeat slows, marginally.

Just as he gathers himself to move again, to retreat back upstairs after this bout of nonsensical fear, he is suddenly and acutely aware of something standing directly behind him. He tells himself that it’s impossible, that there is nothing down in the basement other than himself and the cat, but he cannot ignore the rhythmic feeling of someone breathing down his neck. He cannot ignore the chill he feels wash over his bones like the tide suddenly rising.

 **_Hello,_ ** the word is spoken directly into his ear. It echoes around the small alcove: musical and venomous and ugly. It hangs in the air, a cacophony of different voices all around him. -- **_hello, hello, hello_ ** \-- His ears ring with it.

He cannot have heard that. It’s impossible -- he is all alone in the basement, he knows it. And yet, he cannot bring himself to turn, to face his fears. He is frozen, stock-still.

Millicent hisses, a sharp and sudden noise in Hux’s ear.

The abruptness of the noise spurns his body into movement before he is necessarily ready for it. He turns on his heel and shines his flashlight at the space that was behind him. The light of it is now worryingly dim and wavering. As he moves, he cannot ignore the way the shadows shift and bend out of the way of the timid beam of light. They are solid, so black that they seem to absorb any hints of light that touch them. He cannot unsee what is a tall and impossibly dark shape sidestep into the darkness of the corner -- just feet out of reach.

The sound of deep, rumbling laughter is faint, but unmistakable.

He does not want to, but he shines the dying flashlight at the corner of the room. Even the dim light of it should reach the walls, but it does not. He watches the beam fade into the darkness, consumed by it. A wave of nausea overtakes him like an iron fist gripping his stomach, cold and sickening. He doesn’t like what he cannot see, and so he looks away.

It’s possible that looking away was an even worse decision than staring searchingly into the void.

While Hux’s eyes had had trouble processing staring directly into the darkness, the corner of his vision and his brain have no problem discerning what is there. Looming in the corner is a tall mass of a creature: a beast built entirely of nightmares. It is distinctively human shaped, but so very clearly not human. It crouches and looms -- too tall, too bulky, and far too close. Long limbs, rippling muscle, and so many teeth. Hux has never been so inherently and viscerally frightened in his life. No matter how much he tries, he cannot convince himself to unsee it out of the corner of his eye. When he catches a hint of movement in his peripheral, his eyes dart back to focus on the corner again -- and he sees nothing, only darkness.

There is nothing there.

If he were to look away, he knows that he would see it again. He knows this instinctively.

Every bone in his body wants to flee. Every fibre of his being wants to never see that tall, dark shape again. But Hux will not be a prisoner to his instincts. He tightens his grip on his flashlight like a security blanket, dim and useless as it is, and turns his head very slightly so that he is looking a little off-center to the corner. He sees the shape again -- this time, it is clearer. Perhaps because he is trying to see it.

When it moves, he tries not to flinch or run. It does not spring at him -- it simply shifts, adjusting its hunching form. It stays in the corner, but it clearly seems to be making itself more comfortable in a position in which it can stare at Hux. Hux supposes it is fair, as he is apparently doing the equivalent of staring back.

The situation is absurd. The thought hits him like a itch -- slowly growing, but also inescapable. He is in his basement, surrounded by darkness, staring at a corner, utterly and completely convinced that there is something there that he cannot look directly at. He vows to say something, to break the silence and convince himself that he is alone.

But he is beaten to the punch.

 **_Hello_ ** , the word rings out from the corner. This time it is clear as day. There is no doubt in Hux’s head that he heard it, no skepticism to fall comfortably back on. At the noise, goosebumps crawl all over Hux’s skin like hundreds of bugs.

Millicent springs from Hux’s shoulder. She hits the floor with a soft thud and bolts toward the stairs.

Suddenly, he is alone in the darkness with too-dark shadows and disembodied voices. And his own imagination.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” His voice sounds foreign in the darkness, too loud and too much. The sentiment is absolutely indisputable, though. This is absurd, and now even his cat has abandoned him. “No,” he says into the darkness, because manners do not apply here. He does not owe the shadows any courtesy and he does not think the void deserves his respect. “Absolutely not.” He tries to fight the distinct impression he has that he is currently arguing with himself.

That’s it. He is done.

Against every instinct he has, Hux turns on his heel and exposes his back to the corner of the room. He ignores the cold feeling that creeps down the back of his neck, ignores the alarm bells screaming in his brain. With the dim light of the flashlight, he makes his way out of the storage area and across the expanse of the basement at a brisk speed, only because he never moves lazily, not because he is afraid of the dark.

He steadfastly ignores the feeling of something softly brushing against the hair at the back of his head while he climbs the stairs toward the light of the kitchen.

When he closes the door to the basement before he goes to sleep, he tells himself that tomorrow, he will stop being so foolish.

 


	3. Chapter 3

It’s not necessarily that the activity in Hux’s house lessens or quiets, even though it feels suspiciously like it at first; it’s more that everything suddenly shifts abruptly sideways. All of the antics that Hux has grown accustomed to go straight out the window and are replaced by -- other things.

It’s after the charade in the basement that everything changes.

For a while, the house is quiet. Too quiet. Everything is muffled and noiseless -- Hux even finds it difficult to hear the birds in the mornings or the trash trucks rumbling away outside. It makes for great sleeping, but after a while it gets disconcerting. The quiet seeps underneath Hux’s skin, making him jumpy and paranoid whenever there _is_ a noise. He drops things more frequently -- or at least it feels like it, because he notices the noise more. Millicent gets into more things, causes more havoc than a cat normally does -- simply because Hux is paying more attention to anything over baseline.

When the doors stop slamming, the lights cease dimming, and he no longer needs to have fights with the television, he feels like everything's looking up. Everything that was so easy to ignore simply fades into the mutedness of the entire house.

The quiet, unfortunately, is replaced by something that feels far more sinister.

\--

He falls asleep on the couch.

It’s not a habit Hux gets into regularly, because he is an adult with responsibilities and also an expensive mattress, so he has no reason to fall asleep on the couch. He isn’t lazy or impaired -- he is perfectly capable of making it upstairs when he is tired, going through the motions of his nighttime routine, and folding himself into bed. He doesn’t make excuses for himself -- so, when he wakes, bleary-eyed and sleep-sore at three o’clock in the morning on his couch, he only feels disdain at his weak willpower and lack of self control. He blinks away the sleep from his eyes, gaze catching on the dim light from the television. The volume is off and a documentary about space is playing -- dark colors and swirls of stars, mostly. It’s soothing to look at while he drags the rest of himself toward fully awake -- but he also doesn’t remember putting it on. He also doesn’t remember turning the volume off. Last he remembers, he had been watching a documentary on the lost colony of Roanoke on the History Channel. What he is watching now is clearly not the History Channel, nor is it anywhere near it in the list.

“Really?” Hux mumbles, dragging a hand over his face. “Space, huh?” It seems a little less ludicrous talking to himself in the dark when his head is still hazy with dreams: in dreams, nothing is too outlandish, too unreal. He can talk to the dark without hating himself for it.

Now, Hux feels a little stuck between the two states of consciousness: half-asleep and half-awake.

 **_It’s better_ ** , the words come from directly behind and above him -- which is disconcerting in and of itself. Hux’s couch is pushed back up against the wall, so nothing should be able to be behind him. Unless -- _no_. Hux’s mind supplies the answer easily: something balancing on top of the couch, stretched out like a cat on the ridge, long and lean. Hux shudders -- he cannot help himself. The voice had sounded so close, so intimate.

With the lack of slamming doors and dimming lights, Hux thought he might have already faced the worst of it. That maybe, his house was done being haunted. Now, paralyzed with instinctual fear, he realizes that that was only wishful thinking.

He lets out a shaky breath, forcing himself to at least breathe. He stares straight ahead. He knows what he’ll see if he turns around: nothing. He also knows what he’ll see if he looks out of the corner of his eye, and he doesn’t want that, either.

 **_Look at me_** **,** the voice says. **_Turn around, turn around, turn around._ **

“No.” There’s no use arguing with the darkness, but Hux does anyway. He hopes beyond hope that perhaps this is all in his head, that he has finally lost his grip on reality. It seems better than the alternative of some creature made of darkness, void, and teeth stretched out on top of his sofa. “I’d really rather not.” There’s no use in pretending he’s not having a full-on conversation now, no use to clip his words to convince himself he isn’t conversing with shadows.

 **_Look at me_** **,** the voice repeats. The television flickers.

Hux feels the unmistakable feeling of someone playing with the hair on the back of his neck. It’s a gentle movement -- soft and intimate. Hux’s breath catches in his throat when he feels the tips of fingers draw over the sensitive skin just under his hairline. It’s been quite a long time since he’s had any physical contact. Though -- he’s not even sure this counts as physical, especially given the hope that he is imagining it.

“I would rather not.”

The television makes a strange popping noise. The picture flickers again and then static consumes the screen -- accompanied by the harsh and loud buzz, the volume suddenly snapping back on. Hux jolts upward, nearly pitching himself off of the couch at the abruptness of it. The sound gets louder and louder until his ears are ringing.

The entire room in front of him is bathed in the blue light from the static of the television, cold and unfamiliar. Suddenly, the room seems vast, endless and unreal around him. Hux feels more and more like he’s dreaming, underwater and far away from it all. He feels very distant from the fear he felt only moments before.

 **_Turn around_** , the voice beckons from behind him. Fingers stroke over the back of his neck, landing feather-light on the corner of his jaw. The touch is neither cold, nor warm -- simply there. There’s a gentle push, a suggestion for Hux to follow the movement and turn his head and look behind him.

So he does.

\--

Hux wakes up.

He sits up quickly, looking around his living room as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. The room is now bathed in warm, morning light; the space is cozy and welcoming around him. The contrast between how he saw it last night and now is dizzying, and it takes him a second to mentally regain his balance.

Hux groans and yawns, running a hand through his hair. With slow and practiced movements, he then stretches the ache out of his muscles. He’s really too old to be falling asleep on the couch.

Honestly, he’s not really sure why he did, in the first place. He remembers waking up in the middle of the night, remembers the soundless documentary about space -- and he also remembers the voice, the flickering of the TV, and the way something brushed against the back of his neck. He remembers turning -- and then nothing.

He simply woke up on the couch. There is nothing more.

Hux doesn’t like not remembering, and it does absolutely nothing to quell the paranoia that he is slowly losing his grip on reality. Nothing about the strangeness of his house should be happening -- if only he could will himself to not pay attention to it, to simply ignore it. He thinks of popping lights, slamming doors, and the angry flicker of the television: all testaments to why he _can’t_ ignore it, as much as he’d like to.

For now, though, the room feels empty and normal. He tries to write the whole thing off as a strange episode of sleep paralysis and vivid dreaming -- despite the fact that he’s done neither before. Either way, it’s better than the alternative.

\--

Daily life resumes, mostly uninterrupted.

Hux catches glimpses of shadows out of the corners of his eye, but nothing much to take note of.

When he showers, the feeling that something is standing right outside the curtain is sometimes so difficult to ignore that he actually allows himself to check. The bathroom is always empty and Hux is left feeling disappointed in his self control. He knows he is better than glancing around corners, at taking a second before opening his eyes to the darkness, but it wears on him. His patience grows thin and it becomes so difficult to simply keep telling himself there is _nothing there_.

Like all of it, he gets used to the new occurrences unfortunately quickly.

He stops checking behind the curtain of the shower, resigning himself to feeling less alone than he’d like while bathing.

When he wakes in the middle of the night and knows that his room is not empty, that he cannot see into the corner even though everything else is illuminated enough to see, he stops being frightened.

He gets used to the feeling of someone brushing up against the hair at the back of his neck. He tries to write off the small amount of satisfaction he gets from the touch, but it’s difficult when Millicent is the only other being with whom he comes in contact.

It’s the face he occasionally sees behind him in the mirror that is the final straw, however.

Occasionally, he sees a shadow behind him while he’s brushing his teeth or flossing -- and he had gotten used to that remarkably quickly. He’d stopped startling each time it happened, as he simply didn’t have the energy to keep that up. But when he glances behind himself in the mirror and makes eye contact with a honest-to-god _face_ \-- Hux simply cannot deal with that.

It’s not a particularly unpleasant face, but it’s also absolutely nothing like anything he’s grown accustomed to dealing with. He knows how to not shirk away from shadows, knows how to stare down the darkness looming in the corner, but he does not know how to deal with this.

Whenever he looks away and looks back, the face is always gone.

\--

The first couple of times Hux feels like he isn’t alone in his bedroom, he resolutely ignores the feeling and carries on about his usual business. He tries to pay the feeling little attention, tries to give no credence to his own paranoia.

Then, when the tingling feeling on the back of his neck grows harder to ignore, he alters his routine slightly. It’s only little things, like shucking a shirt and boxer briefs on after a shower instead of walking nude to his room in the middle of the night, or neglecting to touch himself when he feels a vague urge to do so. It’s his own house -- he shouldn’t be concerned about living his own life. He shouldn’t be concerned about feeling comfortable in his own space. But that’s difficult to remember, when he feels eyes on him constantly.

Hux has never been one to indulge in personal fantasies often, and typically regards the idea of devoting time to touching himself before bed as a waste of time -- but sometimes he cannot help himself. Sometimes the urge overwhelmes him and he has to indulge in the baser pleasures of life.

Everyone has their weak moments, after all.

After a long and luxurious shower, Hux’s muscles are relaxed and his mind is pleasantly tranquil. He turns off his lights and crawls into bed, loose-limbed and easy.

The sheets glide against his skin, caressing his shower-warm skin. He hasn’t felt anyone’s touch in at least a year, and he can’t help but be reminded of those memories in moments like this, where everything feels too nice against his skin. Normally, he can bite back on the urge to palm himself over the sheets -- but now he has no want to push the desire to the back of his head.

A rush of breath slips into the quiet air of his room when he finally indulges himself, pressing his palm against his half-hard cock trapped behind layers of cotton.

He lets his eyes slip closed, lazy with it. There’s nothing pressing, no need to rush to sleep to get up early in the morning. For once, he lets himself have this small waste of time. It is one indulgence that he will spare for himself, especially in the wake of all the insanity happening around him. He _deserves_ this.

Gently, he lets himself rock up against his hand, his hips moving slowly, half remembering the feeling of pressing into someone else. The fantasy is an easy one to find, to lose himself in: kissing someone softly at first, while moving against them with no urgency or rush. Hands pulling at hair, teeth biting at lips, nails digging against skin. He misses it -- the warmth and affection of someone else. But for now, his hand will do.

Eventually, he grows tired of rutting against his own palm like a teenager, so he kicks the sheets down around his knees and slides his underwear down his hips. He rucks his shirt up, exposing his pale and partially flushed stomach and his swollen cock to the warm air of the room. Looking down at himself in the darkness of the room, he feels a bit wanton in his exposure. Hux can imagine himself through someone else’s eyes, can imagine them running gentle and exploratory fingertips over his abs. He can picture someone calling him _pretty_ or _handsome_ \-- or, if he’s feeling particularly devilish, _depraved_ or _shameless_.  Both are mental images that get his blood pumping hotter in his veins.

Hux takes himself in hand, fingers loose and unhurried. Slowly, he works his hand over himself, sighing as the pleasure becomes something he can lose himself in. It’s easy to find a rhythm, to let his eyes drift closed to more easily imagine someone else’s hand on him instead of his own.

A sudden creak has him opening his eyes and stilling the movement of his hand. He quietly curses and looks at the door to his room: half open. Hux could swear that he closed it, but he must have been too preoccupied.

He gets up, closes the door until he hears a gentle _click_ , and then folds himself back into bed.

It’s when he closes his eyes and just begins to once more lose himself to the sensation that he hears the telltale creak of the door again. For a long second, he keeps his eyes closed, though he removes his hand from his cock. His heart pounds in his chest: he cannot help the sudden awareness of his own body. He cannot help his instincts.

When he opens his eyes again, the door is open. Not that he was expecting anything different at this point.

He looks around his room, unsurprised to find it shades dimmer than it had been earlier. Poorly lit and ominous. As usual, the corners are the darkest. The one farthest away from his bed is the darkest by far -- a mass of shadow and void into which he can see nothing.

The feeling of being watched is unmistakable. He can practically feel the caress of eyes on him.

Hux thinks for a moment of stopping, of folding the covers back over himself and going to bed. It’s a tempting thought. But that would be giving in and giving up, and Brendol Hux does not give in to anything -- even if his opponent is a ghost or simply his own imagination.

It doesn’t help that the thought of something or someone watching him sends delightful shivers down his spine.

Hesitantly, Hux reaches back down and brushes his fingers over his still hard cock. Instead of closing his eyes, he resolutely looks at the corner of his room and gazes into the darkness. The hot thrill of being watched rushes over him, so vibrant and intense that he can feel it rush to his gut. It’s a fervent sort of excitement that he hasn’t felt for ages. He knows that there’s an element to this behavior that is wrong, even if he’s being ridiculous in its execution -- but even if there is nothing in the corner, the idea of being watched is too blatantly arousing to give up.

Hux lets out a quiet moan and heat shoots straight to his dick. He cannot help but grip his cock harder, touch himself a little faster. If he lets himself, he can vividly imagine eyes roving his entire body: something watching him with intent.

The corner is pitch black and inky, and yet Hux has the distinct and intoxicating feeling of meeting someone’s eyes. Maintaining contact. The realization of intimacy has him groaning into the quiet of his room.

Hux isn’t going to be scared out of enjoying jacking off in his own home -- he has to prove a point. The indulgent fantasy of exhibitionism is simply a bit of a perk, a hedonistic gift to himself.

He brushes his thumb over the tip of his cock, gathering a generous bead of precum to brush down his length. He can imagine looking at himself, wantonly spread out on the bed and maintaining eye contact. Touching himself like a whore for someone else’s pleasure. The thought is more appealing than he would have expected.

“Oh, fuck.” Hux’s voice practically echoes into the quiet. He can hear it repeating in his own head -- _oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck_. It eggs him on, gets him panting like he’s putting on a bit of a show. His eyes close briefly in pleasure, but he opens them fast so that he can keep looking into the shadows. Hux doesn’t want to lose his little fantasy, doesn’t want to give in. It’s a game now, and there’s no way he’s going to lose by breaking eye contact now.

He imagines someone watching his show proudly, someone giving in and drawing their fingertips over his thighs, his exposed neck, his taut stomach. All the touches would be teasing -- unsatisfying. After all: this is about Hux touching himself, taking his pleasure and making a spectacle of himself.

Perhaps he imagines it, but perhaps not -- but the darkness grows. The walls of his room lengthen and drift apart, leaving him all alone on his bed, surrounded by the shadows. Vast in a sea of nothingness. Pleasure and pride are all he can feel. And yet, Hux cannot stop looking into the corner, cannot stop himself from losing his gaze to the void.

He moves his hand quickly, jacking his cock with real effort now. With his other hand, he cups his balls, fondling them in a way he only would for the benefit of an onlooker. He pulls on them, tugging gently. Somehow, it feels better than he ever thought possible. The moans fall out of him loosely, shamelessly. He feels like a whore, like he simply can’t enough of the idea of working himself over for someone else.

The lingering idea that he _is_ being watched, that this is not just mere fantasy, is growing harder and harder to ignore.

The feeling builds, his breathing quickens.

“Fuck,” Hux can’t take it. Normally, he can hold himself off for longer, but he simply cannot help the heat building rapidly inside him while he maintains eye contact with the darkness. It’s too much -- and yet, somehow, _not_ _quite enough_.

The words slip from his lips before he can think otherwise: “God, please.” The idea of begging for it is a good one. He feels shameless at the thought of being at someone’s mercy, of someone seeing him like this. Spread out and needy and depraved. “Please,” He can’t help it as the fantasy takes hold. It’s so much, too much.

 _Come for me_ , he imagines someone saying. It’s so vivid Hux practically hears it ringing in his ears.

The rush of pleasure hits him like a punch, hard and cruel. It washes over him, has him emptying his load onto his stomach, his shirt. Some of his spunk hits him in the chin, which only fuels the fire of the performance. As he comes down from the wave of bliss, he lazily drags his fingers through his own come, getting his fingers sticky and dripping with it. He draws them over his softening cock, lazily working himself until he’s overstimulated, until his hips are snapping and bucking in protest.

Still, he stares at the corner of his room.

“Fuck,” he whimpers.

The word echoes into the black.

\--

“That’s it,” Hux declares after a relatively quiet moment is ruined by the sharp slam of the basement door. It echoes into the house, assaulting Hux’s eardrums even from his faraway perch in his home office. He’s tired of chasing shadows, tired of bowing to the whims of whatever spooky spectre lives in his home. “That is it.”

He will be a slave to the void no longer.

He slams his laptop shut, puts new batteries into the flashlight, and makes his way to the now-closed door to the basement. Millicent coils around his legs, but he gently pushes her away with his socked foot. “Not now, Millie. You stay up here.” He’s not bringing a small animal into this absolute insanity. He opens the door quickly and then swiftly closes it behind him before the cat can venture down with him. He gets one plaintive meow in return

The harsh click of the door behind him leaves Hux alone in the basement. Sealed in.

The lights are on and steady as he walks resolutely down the stairs, flashlight gripped tightly in his hand. They do not flicker even once, which is a feat in and of itself. Once he makes it to the carpeted ground, he feels a bit more at ease. His will is bolstered by confidence and an unyielding desire to finally be _done_ with this nonsense. He will beat this thing, even if it is in his own head -- he _will_.

Hux holds that confidence in between his ribs like a vice while he searches the basement, shining his flashlight in every single dark corner available to him. Methodically he makes his way around the space, starting in the main room and moving into the storage area.

He spends the most time in the darker storage alcove, inspecting every unfinished corner, every space that could be eclipsed by shadow. And yet, he finds nothing but cobwebs. Even from the opposite corner of the basement, he can hear Millicent’s plaintive meows from behind the closed door to the kitchen. The soft sound of her pawing against the door is comforting, in a soft sort of way. Eventually, Hux gives up his search. He turns off the light to the smaller room and pads his way out into the rest of the basement.

Still empty.

Of _course_ it is empty. He’s the only one down here. He’s the only one who is ever down here. To think anything else would be absurd.

A few feet from the stairs, he pauses. He’s not entirely sure where the urge to turn comes from, but it itches at him like a mosquito bite, growing in urgency with each passing second. He tries to ignore it for how idiotic it is -- he is not turning around to double-check something he already spent long minutes searching. There is no inch of his basement that he has left un-explored. But the itch does not go away. It crawls underneath his skin, pulling and tugging until it feels like his blood is boiling in his veins.

Finally, the impulse becomes unbearable enough that Hux turns on his heel, swiveling fast to look at the storage room one last time.

There is nothing there.

His heart pounds in his chest, the sound of it ringing in his ears. He feels unbelievably relieved, though he’s not entirely sure about _what_ : he wasn’t expecting anything. Hux knew, beyond all doubt, that he would turn around to find nothing but the empty basement before him. And now, he can only chastise himself for giving in to such a childish impulse.

With a sigh, he turns back to the stairs, content to leave.

There is a man standing directly in front of him.


	4. Chapter 4

Hux cannot breathe.

For a moment, he has no idea what to do. The stark white nothingness of basement suddenly feels both vast and oppressive, stretching on for miles around him while simultaneously crumbling inward, suffocating. It is too bright, too dark -- too everything. He feels dizzy with the immediate hit of adrenaline to his bloodstream.

“What the _fuck_?”

There is a _man_ in his house.

There is a man in his _house_. In his basement. Right in front of Hux.

While Hux had been busy exploring his basement like a child obsessed with finding the monster under his bed, this man must have broken in and snuck downstairs. Or perhaps Hux was so distracted that he had neglected to lock his doors or windows and the man could have snuck in at any time and simply found somewhere to lurk quietly while waiting to strike. The opportunity was there and this man took it. Hux can only be infuriated with himself.

Or he will be, anyway, when he stops being so needlessly startled.

He hadn’t even heard anyone come down the creaking stairs.

He cannot help the rushing of his blood in his ears, the influx of adrenaline into his system. One minute he was alone in the basement, the next he was not. He was expecting a ghost, a spook -- not a _man_.  And now, the immediate rush of relief he gets from the object of his surprise not being supernatural is taken away by the fact that he still should have every reason to be on guard. Men are dangerous and capable of needless cruelty, too. Now, instead of casually fretting about imaginary spooks, Hux has to face a potentially dangerous home invader with nothing more than a flashlight.

The fear is lessened, if only so slightly, by the fact that this man has not yet attacked.

All of his deliberation happens in a split second, even though it seems to stretch on forever in his head. “How did you get in here?” Hux says, when he really means to say: “ _Get out_.” He also says that, too -- as a fiery afterthought. He’s too flustered to maintain his normal level of coherencey.  

“Hello,” he gets in return.

Hux cannot help but balk. The man has not moved, not an inch, but neither has Hux. They stand mere inches from each other in the empty white space of the basement, Hux’s heavy breathing echoing loud into the void. Hux cannot help but stare at the stranger, refusing to take his eyes off him, not even for a second. It’s a stand-off. He doesn’t want to be attacked, doesn’t want to show vulnerability.

This man must be a lunatic, breaking in and then trying to confront the owner of the house. Hux doesn’t like that -- he seems unpredictable, unfazed as he is. The thought that the stranger is here for Hux, to cause him damage, and not for valuables passes through his mind, but he refuses to dwell. There is no need for outright panic. Not yet, anyway.

“Get out of my house.” Hux punctuates each word with crisp precision. He knows how to sound firm. Resolute.

The more Hux looks at the man, the more familiar the intruder looks.

     -- But, Hux can’t place it; he knows he’s never met him before.

Finally, the man moves -- if only slightly. He shifts on his feet, quirks up the corner of his mouth in something like a smile, and tilts his head. “No.” His voice is low, melodic like a chorus of bells. It reminds Hux of the wind at night, of the sound of static ringing in his ears after a clap of thunder. “I’m not leaving.” There is something about his tone that is unerringly decisive.

For a moment, Hux feels no need to argue -- complacent with the choice. Like a siren song. Maybe, this man does not need to leave.

Then, Hux snaps to, shaking his head as if to clear it. Lack of sleep is getting to him. What was he thinking? “You _will_ leave. This is my house. I don’t know how you got in, but you are not welcome here. Get out.” He knows, fundamentally, that arguing with a home invader is dangerous, that this man could snap any second. He doesn’t look like he has a gun, but that doesn’t mean he came unarmed. He could have a concealed firearm, a knife, a taser -- anything. He also could have no compunction about killing Hux in an instant, and while Hux knows he’d put up a good fight, this man is large and muscular. Hux isn’t sure he could win against this stranger.

The man laughs, his pearly whites showing between pulled-apart lips. For a second, it reminds Hux of a snarling wolf, a grinning shark -- a predator -- though he’s not sure why: the more Hux looks, the more aesthetically appealing this stranger becomes. His angular features and striking bone structure suit him well. In another life, on another day, if Hux were to see him on the street or at work -- he’d find this man attractive. It’s hilariously unfortunate, really, that he has to be in Hux’s house, laughing at an order to leave like someone who’s ready to snap at any instant.

And here, Hux  thought he was the one losing his mind.

“Leave,” Hux says again. Given that Hux hasn’t been attacked yet, he knows that he should reach out and touch, to shove this man up the stairs and out the door, but he cannot bring himself to do it. He cannot reach out, cannot make contact. His brain simply won’t allow it. Even the thought of it sends an icy shiver of dread straight to his gut.

“ ** _No,_ ** ” The intruder says, and Hux’s ears ring with the force of the word. It echoes. It sings, like a chorus.

Then, with a loud _pop_ , the lights in the basement snap off and the entire room is bathed in darkness.

Panic flares in Hux’s chest. He _cannot_ be trapped in the basement, in the pitch black, with a man who very well might be out of his mind. It can’t be happening. His chances of survival have now dropped exponentially, plummeted straight through the ground; Hux knows this. Before, he had a fighting chance if the intruder were to attack him, and he _hadn’t_ attacked yet -- now, Hux has nothing, not even his vision.

He could stay in the darkness, fumble around for the stranger and try to land the first punch -- or he could forsake his pride and make a break for the stairs.

Hux chooses the smarter of the two options, the latter, and bolts for the stairs.

He first cuts a couple steps back and then to the left, as the intruder had been standing right in front of him. There’s no chance he wants to run headlong into the other man. Then, Hux books it for where the stairs are --

     -- where the stairs should be.

...they are not there.

There is nothing there.

Hux freezes after too many steps. At this point, he should be hitting the stairs -- or, hell, actually the opposite wall with as far as he’s gone, but instead he hits nothing. Eventually, heart thudding loudly in his chest, he takes a step forward, a long and measured stride. And then another. And another. Hitting nothing, again and again.

Hux walks for twenty paces -- far longer than his small basement from corner to corner -- and still hits nothing. It feels, too acutely, like his lungs are trying to climb out his throat, taking bile and blood with them from his chest cavity. He can barely breathe, can barely think. He no longer feels fear for a stranger in his house; he is more afraid of where he is, for what is happening to him.

He thinks, perhaps, that this is all a dream. And that he might wake up at any moment.

Any moment.

He wills it to happen, in the way one wills dice to roll a certain way. In the way one hopes for a migraine to recede. In the way one wishes upon a star -- futile and hopeful in turns.

Hux does not wake.

Instead, the darkness surrounds and envelops him, so full and heavy that he cannot see his own feet. He can barely see his own hand out in front of his face. It feels humid in his lungs, substantial. The soupy consistency of summer air -- yet cold and unforgiving. Nothing like summer. Nothing like winter, either.

Hux swallows. It feels like the sound echoes all around him into the void, reverberating against walls that he cannot find. With a hand above him, he jumps -- and cannot touch the ceiling, as short as his basement is. He can’t seem to muster up surprise at that anymore. He leans down, swooping until he brushes fingertips against the carpeted ground, still soft and solid underneath his feet. At least it is there. Tangible.

The idea that he is not alone in the endless darkness is stifling, terrifying -- and somehow strangely calming. It all falls down to one simple fact: at least he isn’t suffering this absurd fate alone. It gives him a moment of satisfaction, knowing that the home invader is just as trapped as he is. It’s such a human feeling, so visceral and familiar that it’s like sliding on a second skin. He has never before particularly felt the need to have company -- but right now, the feeling is almost suffocating in its intensity.

“Fuck,” He murmurs to himself, taking a deep breath. He has to collect himself, has to get out of this. Hux thinks and assesses, because that’s what he’s good at and that’s what keeps him calm: analyzing and planning. The possible scenarios and solutions are as follows:

  1. He is dreaming. All he needs to do is wake up, and this nightmare will be over.
  2. He is drugged. Perhaps the home intruder somehow dosed him with something. He will eventually come to and will have to assess the situation from there.
  3. He is hallucinating from a fever. Perhaps there was no home intruder after all, and Hux imagined him up before imagining an even more unsavory scenario. He needs to regain his grip on reality and likely go to the hospital.
  4. This is all real. The intruder, the darkness, the never-ending expanse of empty basement before him -- all of it is real. In which case? He’s fucked. He has no idea what to do in that scenario, other than keep walking, keep searching for a way out.



So, that is what he does. He keeps walking because he doesn’t appear to be waking up or getting a firmer hold on reality; nothing is changing. His world is an empty expanse of void. There are no sounds, other than the soft pad of his feet underneath him, muted like he is underwater. _Fuck_ , he says again, just to listen to the word fade from his tongue, disappearing like ash in the wind.

Time drags on.

Eventually, the clenching feeling in his chest loosens; it fades from the sharp acidic bite of anxiety into something that feels an awful lot like _worry_ mixed with the tang of anger. Hux has never been one to deal with frustration well, and this is perhaps the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to him -- or that he has ever put himself through. He leans toward the idea that this is all a test of his own mind, a terrible dream, because that is the easiest option to hold onto at the moment. Normally, the idea that he is losing his grip on reality is a offputting and frightening -- now, it seems like the option he should hope for.

Hope against hope, and all that.

The darkness neither fades, nor deepens, and so Hux keeps walking. Just when he feels his resolve dropping, he feels his shirtsleeve brush up against something. Just the faintest hint, but it is undeniable. He is instantly reminded of walking through a forest, leaves catching on his shirt like soft fingers -- gentle and fleeting. He whips around, half-stuck between wanting to reach out for whatever touched him and wanting to recoil away. The sensory deprivation must be getting to him, chipping away at his mental facilities, making him imagine things.

He reaches out despite knowing better, tentative hand extended into the void before him.

It’s cold.

\-- and also empty.

He stands for a long moment like that, hand extended toward the darkness, before he sighs and gives up. Resigned, he pulls his arm back toward himself, cursing his own folly.

Before his arm is back at his side, something grabs him.

Hard and insistent, something that feels distinctly like fingers wraps around his forearm, vicelike. The sensation is brutal -- freezing and burning and _emptying_. Hux has never felt anything like it before -- it feels like there is nothing left of him, no molecules, no soul -- but only at that one point of contact on his arm. He feels empty there, but overflowing at the same time. The sensation of death, of not existing, swims through his head, concentrating on that one focal point. He thinks, briefly, that it is the most alive he has ever felt in his entire life.

 _How strange_ , he thinks, losing himself to the intoxicating dichotomy of it.

It’s almost pleasant.

And then, suddenly, he is falling --

     -- tumbling down and down, into the all-encompassing arms of the void.

\--

Hux wakes in his bed.

He bolts upright, panting in panic, cold fear coursing through his veins. His eyes are wide, and the morning light hurts, so he closes them and takes a few deep breaths, attempting to steady his heartbeat. It’s just so bright. He feels like his eyes adjusted to darkness for days upon days. With closed eyes, he takes stock. He is in his bed. In his room. Judging by the quality of light, it is morning. He is very much alive and well, and everything appears to be normal.

He allows himself a singular sigh of relief.

Carefully, he squints his eyes open, taking stock of his room through his eyelashes. Everything appears to be in order, in place and just where he left it. His door is open, as he often leaves it when it doesn’t close itself of its own accord. His blinds and curtains are open because he never closed them before going to bed. He must have simply passed out due to sheer exhaustion. Somehow, he must have navigated his way to his bed, half asleep, and everything he had imagined thereafter had just been a dream. It is -- a moderately comforting though.

He puts the back of his hand to his forehead, testing for a fever: he’s not warm. Could have been a twelve-hour virus, something that knocked him sideways and then left before he ever knew he had it. It _must_ have been.

The thought that he had entertained any of it as a possibility was absolutely ludicrous.

Resigned and feeling childish in his descent into fear, he rubs the sleep from his eyes, drawing his hands over his face to wipe away the remnants of his fatigue. That dream, that hallucination, had been absolutely exhausting. He can feel it resting heavy in his limbs now, even though he just woke up -- he should be well rested. But at least is awake, so there is little point in chastising himself over previous transgressions -- especially given that the outcome is _fine_.

Best get up and start the day, though. Hux stretches, hands above his head, letting his eyes fully open to take in his room. He brings his arms down again -- and stops.

_Holy lord above --_

Hux viscerally remembers the feeling of fingers around his forearm in the darkness, just before waking. He could have easily written that off as a dream, forgotten all about it after a few minutes of going about his daily routine. Perhaps he might have been reminded of it another day, faintly, if something were to trigger his memory -- but he easily could have forgotten, as with all of his other dreams.

Now, he will never forget.

Blazoned across his forearm are coal-black finger marks -- shaped like a bruise, right where he had felt something grab him in his dream. First, he assumes it is a bruise -- maybe he grabbed himself in his sleep, gripped too tightly and for too long --  but upon closer inspection, as he brings his arm up to his face, he has to concede: it is like no bruise Hux has ever seen. There is no delineation of color, no blues or purples or yellows: just black. The lines of the mark are clear and crisp, the finger-marks long and defined. They come to points at the ends.

He cannot suppress the full-body shudder that runs through him, when he brushes his fingertips curiously over the mark. It’s like a brand, partially raised but absolutely unsore. It looks like he’s had it forever, like a birthmark that has been with him through his entire life. It’s darker than any tattoo he’s seen, inky black like the darkness that had been around him.

 _Holy shit_.

For once, Hux does not know what to do. All of his previous problems were inconsequential in comparison to _this_. Where is he supposed to go from here?

He brushes a fingertip over the mark again, this time less gently -- to see if he can rub it away, like ink. It does not come. Instead, another shiver cascades down his spine like an electric current and he cannot suppress the audible gasp that falls from his lips. He can still feel it now, the solid grip of something firm against his arm, holding him in the darkness. It is a memory he is now likely to never forget.

“What the _fuck_?” He says aloud, into his empty room.

The open door slams closed in reply.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for dubcon and sort-of-gore warnings in this chapter, see the end notes

Hux does not get out of bed for a long time.

He cocoons himself in the comforting warmth of his sheets, letting them shroud him in a false sense of security. He feels like a child, taking comfort in the solace of blankets as armor from the outside world. When he was a small boy, he had slept with a nightlight outside his room, its light dimly illuminating the the hallway to the bathroom. He remembers nights with the power out, creeping along the endless expanse of hallway to get a glass of water from the sink. In the darkness, the journey lasted forever.

He knows now, more viscerally and poignantly than before, that in the darkness, space and time are devoid of any and all meaning. In the darkness, he has nothing.

Except that’s not entirely true, is it?

He pulls the crisp sheets up to his chin, covering all of him so he is simultaneously shielded from the world and also covered from his own eyes. With the sheets up, he cannot see the mark on his arm, the stark and real evidence that he had not been dreaming the night before. He cannot see the unmistakable proof that he was not alone in that shadowy void.

In the darkness, he has a friend.

The thought sends a shiver down his spine. It is both terrifying and terribly exciting, in a sickening sort of way. It feels like a bolt of lightning striking the ground closeby -- immediate fear, and then a jolt of excitement at the rush of danger, of the unknown.

Hux was in the endless pit of his basement, a dark space that could have stretched out for miles and miles below his house -- and he did not die. He survived, even though he has a mark to show for it. A badge. A medal.

Eventually, he pulls himself out of bed. He tugs on clothes and rolls his shirt-sleeves up, just so he can finally see the tell-tale mark on his forearm whenever he shifts. He has to look at it. He must. He cannot help the way it catches his eye, the way he startles minutely every time he sees it; it’s new. It makes his gut churn in pleasantly unpleasant ways.

It, beyond everything else, is proof that this is not all in his head.

\--

Hux makes himself pancakes for breakfast. It’s silly and childish, but the thought of eating something sugary and indulgent is enormously appealing. There’s little point in fighting the urge, so he he dredges a recipe up from the internet, as he doesn’t keep the mix in his house. It’s not quite as good as what his mother used to make him in his childhood, but it’s a passable facsimile. The consistency is a bit thicker, more substantial, and the dash of both cinnamon and nutmeg he throws in makes it a concoction all of his own. When the pancakes are done, they smell like home -- his home, now, opposed to what is only a faint memory of his childhood. He doesn’t keep maple syrup in the house -- no need, really -- so he substitutes with a good dollop of butter and a spoonful of brown sugar on each cake.

The pancakes are good, so good that he eats them all. Filling and rich and comforting. He licks the leftover sugar from his fork, knife, and then his lips.

When he’s finished and the silverware is resting on his plate, he gives in and dusts his fingertips over the mark on his arm, unable to keep away from it for longer than a few minutes. The fingers of it are so long, so dark, so ominous. There is no ignoring it -- the feeling of it against his skin is constant -- an ache, barely comprehensible, all the way through. Absently, he wonders what his muscle, tissue, and sinew must look like underneath the confines of it. Is it all dark with the absence of any light, straight through to bone? Does his blood flow black underneath the mark, sticky and pitch and void? A sick part of him considers the very real possibility of walking slowly to the kitchen to get a knife, one of the big sharp ones, still sharpened perfectly, just to see. To pry up the skin and peek underneath, into the endless darkness now stretching out inside of him. To let the blood flow black down his arm, to land in puddles of bleak nothingness on the ground.

There is a reality in which he does just that, just like there is a reality that exists in which he never woke up in the morning, in which he never left the basement. There is another reality in which he sold the house months ago, relocated to California to while away the days in the sun, gathering freckles like pebbles on the beach.

In this reality, he presses a warm palm over the mark, feels the nothingness it gives off now-- not warm, not cold, not anything at all -- and then moves back to the kitchen to place his plate in the sink.

\--

Hux takes the day off work. There is little point in mucking through the sundry and tedious details of contracts and emails and reports while his mind isn’t on the task at hand. It feels a bit like giving in, especially for Hux, who hasn’t taken a sick day since he was in middle school, when he’d been rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. He’d wanted to return to school the next day, but his parents and doctors had forbidden him. But there was no other choice then, and there really isn’t now.

It helps, if even minutely, to know what if all of this is real and is truly happening to him, that work is the least of his worries.

Hux has never been one for existential crises, but he finds himself hovering close to one all day, very nearly tipping over the edge every time his eyes catch on the dark mark on his arm. It is too concrete a reminder that what happened was at least partially real, that his mind is not just having its way with him. The whole situation begs too many questions of him, some that he is not willing to tackle. Not now, and not at any point in his lifetime. He has no desire to know or understand if the ‘ _supernatural_ ’ is something real. He has no mind to figure out if this is the one and only true plane of existence, or if there are others -- much less if there are others _inside his own house_. He has absolutely no burning itch to know if he is being haunted, personally or peripherally. He’d just very much like to stay out of the entire thing, if possible.

However, you can’t always get what you want. That much, at this point, has become singularly apparent.

Hux sits on his couch, staring at the empty screen of his powered-off television. He could turn it on, but the possibility of having to deal with it turning back off of its own volition, of it changing channels passive-aggressively, or of it doing anything else on the spectrum of _strange_ is too daunting right now. He doesn’t have the energy left inside himself to deal, to make peace with a shift in reality.

He sits for a long time, staring off into the pale blackness of the television, and then at the white wall above it. He admires the dust, as it catches in the afternoon light streaming through the living room windows.

He is exhausted.

About an hour later, maybe even two, when the light in the room has waned, he finally musters up the energy to move himself, to shift and stretch in his seat. It’s only as he pulls his hand away to arch his back and stretch his arms above his head that he realizes he had been pressing his palm flat to the mark on his arm for the entire time he had been zoning out. His palm tingles as he thinks of it, and the spot on his arm flushes with heat, with little pinpricks of awareness and warmth. It’s not altogether a wholly unpleasant feeling, but he cannot brush off the strangeness of it all.

“Why?” He speaks aloud, the quiet whisper of his voice still loud and jarring in the silence of his house.

The basement door creaks in reply, the noise distorted and muffled between walls and doorways as it winds its way from the kitchen to the living room.

Hux takes a breath. For a moment, he thinks it foolish to reply -- but at this point, it is very hard to try and convince himself that there is nothing amiss, nothing abnormal about this situation. And so, he speaks, “That’s not a reply, you know.”

**_I know._ **

The voice comes from directly behind him. Centimeters from his ear. He swears he can feel the soft brush of lips against cartilage, the faint hint of breath on his neck, and it sends shivers crashing down his spine in waves.

When he whips around to the side, there is nothing there.

\--

Slowly, Hux’s routine creeps back into his bones. It’s unavoidable, for him -- it was only a matter of time. Days pass. He does his work, he watches his documentaries, he goes to the grocery store twice a week. Millicent continues to sleep in the crook of his neck, whine for food, and generally avoid the basement. Doors still slam in the middle of the night, Hux still catches himself checking in the mirror behind him while he’s brushing his teeth, and he continuously feels watched. But nothing _else_ happens. There is no ramping up of “ _activity,_ ” nor is there any decrease. It’s all the same. All stagnant. Hux isn’t entirely sure what he expected, but he apparently wasn’t expecting the steady, consistent normalcy that existed before the incident to continue, to keep chugging along like this is just the way reality works now.

It says a lot about his current mental state of being that regular supernatural occurrences have become so commonplace that Hux considers them normal. A lack of change in his daily routine, however strange and unnatural it may be, is -- kind of _boring_.

Mentally, he feels like he should still be trying to write all of this off as he did before. But then, all it takes is one look down at his arm, one quick pass over the mark with his fingernails, a gesture that elicits a shiver throughout his entire body, to remind himself that he _cannot_ write all this off. No matter how much he wants to.

One Wednesday, Hux brings his laptop outside to work in the morning air of the summer, before the humidity of the day grows oppressive. Fresh air is good for the soul -- or so say many pieces of literature, anyway. He sets the computer down on his small patio table, places a cup of coffee down next to it, and gets to work. The routine is easy to return to, and the change of scenery is a good one for his boredom. He works solidly for about an hour straight before he sits back and stretches, long arms above his head. As usual, when he glances over his laptop screen, Millicent is sitting on the table, her tail flicking out over the edge. She is as relaxed and lazy as ever, though she cracks an eye open when Hux huffs out a laugh at her daily routine.

“You live an extremely difficult life, don’t you?” He tells the cat, leaning over to softly scratch at her head. She lets out an understanding meow, and closes her eyes again.

“No menacing concerns about the nature of reality for you today, I take it. How lucky.” Hux leans back and takes a sip of his coffee, only to find the cup mostly empty, as he had been absentmindedly drinking it whilst working. Oh well -- at least he’d managed to zone out for a while.

It’s a short trip inside to refresh the cup and stick it in the microwave until steam is rising from the rich liquid once more, and when he comes back outside he feels mentally refreshed from the brief change in position.

“Back to work, I suppose,” he tells the cat. Millicent stretches out across the table when he sits down again, belly-up and relaxed. She squeaks out a greeting that he can’t help but smile at. If only his father could see him now, getting soft over a house pet. He can’t help the fact that his eyes dart over the hand-print on his arm when he reaches forward to touch one of Millicent’s extended paws in an affectionate, compulsive brush of his fingertips. The mark is still as dark as possible, even when illuminated in the light of day.

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Great -- he’s talking to himself now, as much as he’s talking to the cat. He didn’t used to be this person -- an absent minded fool who rambled to himself and saw things out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t used to be someone who _believed_ in anything that could be seen in the shadows.

 **_It is._ ** The words startle Hux upright, but when he whips his head around to check for the source of the voice in his ear, he can’t see anything at all. There’s no one around in his quaint walled garden, no one except for him and the cat. No one. Nothing.

 **_Over here_ ** \-- an echo, sudden and insistent, in his head. It bounces in every direction, a quiet whisper that rolls into a sudden and overwhelming cacophony.

**_Over here, over here, overhere, overhereoverhereoverhere --_ **

Even with the din, Hux isn’t distracted enough to forget the goosebumps that suddenly prick his flesh, the cold dread that falls over the back of his neck like a threatening hand. The temperature outside plummets. The sun -- wherever it is, no longer overhead in the sky -- dims. The saturation drops out of everything around him, and Hux swears the only colors he can see are the orange of Millicent’s fur and the hint of blush over his own hands. The blood, pumping through his veins.

 **_Over here,_ ** the voice rings out in his head. This time, when Hux turns his head in the direction it sounded like it came from, his eyes do not find the nothing he expects. He shudders, a wave of nausea and fear racking into him like a gust of wind. Standing in his garden, close to the thicket by the back wall, is a too-tall figure -- not a person, not quite. It is black, pitch black; with long limbs, just like what he saw in the basement doorway. There are gleaming red eyes watching him, bright and menacing in the middle of the void that would be the figure’s face, if it had one.

Fear paralyzes him, and all Hux can do is stare. Eyes caught, locked with this thing in his garden, the creature from his house. It cannot be, and yet it is. Hux blinks, and it’s still there. The edges around it are shifting, shimmering -- too far away for Hux to see clearly. He looks for too long and the darkness creeps in at the edges of his vision. He cannot see this creature’s face at all, and yet he knows it’s smiling at him. He sees, and then doesn’t see, rows and rows of sharp teeth, all curved upward in a predatory grin.

Hux blinks once more, and then it is gone.

The garden is light, sunny -- no longer oppressive and desaturated. Oxygen fills his lungs, clearing his head. Relief floods his body like a drug. He stares at his yard, empty and beautiful, for a long while, before turning back toward the table.

There is a blur of shadow when he moves his head, the darkness around the edges of his vision shifting, and  then -- there is someone sitting in the seat across from Hux’s.

The same man that Hux saw in his basement.

The man smiles.

Hux’s body is stuck somewhere between fear and anger. Fear, for the creature he just saw, and now the home intruder. Anger, at this man daring to be on his property again. -- And finally, another chilling dose of fear at the logical connection between the two. He cannot write it off as coincidence. Even as much as he’d like to. The last time he saw this man’s face, Hux became lost within the confines of his own house, inside the void of something that was perhaps another reality.

“Hello,” the man says. His eyes are dark, endless in their depths. His face, angular and striking. When he smiles, his teeth are -- normal. There is nothing unusual about them -- and yet Hux cannot stop looking, cannot stop trying to count the multitudes of pearly whites in the other man’s mouth. There are too many, and they are too sharp. When Hux blinks, and looks again, there is nothing extraordinary about them at all.

“How did you get back here?” The gate to the back yard is rusted shut; the only plausible way in is through the house or over the tall, ivy-covered fence. Hux would have heard him coming either way, would have _seen_ him. Hux should be telling this man to leave -- but he gets the distinct impression it would do little good. It certainly didn’t do anything for Hux the last time.

The man grins wider. “Same as you: through the door.”

Hux turns, looks at the back door, which is still firmly closed, and then looks back -- at the empty seat across from him. It’s hard to muster up surprise, at this point. Of course he’s gone. Millicent is still stretched across the table, though her tail is twitching rapidly in annoyance, staring at Hux as if he can fix this, like he has some sort of explanation for what just happened.

 _Okay,_ Hux thinks as he takes a sip of his now-cold coffee, _This is just my life now._

\--

When Hux crawls into bed that night, he’s exhausted. The feeling is bone deep, filling his limbs with heavy lead. He’d had to drag himself upstairs and through his evening routine through sheer willpower. It turns out that fighting with the confines of reality is not necessarily the most restful of mental activities, and he ends up falling into bed without taking his usual evening shower. He manages to at least shed his clothes, so that his warm skin slides nude against cool blankets. It’s fine, he reminds himself while staring at the ceiling, he can shower in the morning.

It should be disconcerting to try and fall asleep in a house that he knows he is not alone in, but Hux cannot find the mental energy to care. The slow pull into unconsciousness is gentle and steady, and altogether too satisfying.

He lets out a sigh, and finds weightlessness in sleep.

Dreamless slumber cocoons him in its warmth, and he hardly shifts from where he originally stretched on his bed, half under the sheets, half splayed across the mattress. The restoring rest is both needed and treasured, and Hux is only vaguely aware of his body relishing it, soaking up every ounce.

It does not, however, prevent him from drifting awake at three in the morning.

His ascent into consciousness is slower than his descent: more rocky, more confusing. Hux is not necessarily a light sleeper, but he does occasionally wake at the end of a REM cycle if a door slams, or if his phone rings. But in those cases, he typically jolts into alertness. Now, he finds it tricky to grab a hold of consciousness. Half awake, half asleep. Now that his body has started the process of meandering toward being awake, he doesn’t entirely wish to stop it -- but he also isn’t prepared for the unfamiliar fight.

His limbs are heavy, still full of sleep. With a quiet mumble, he shifts on the bed, only to find himself weighted down, body largely sluggish and unresponsive to his whims. However, fatigue clouds his thoughts, negating any concern or annoyance. He is simply drifting in the void between awake and asleep, head foggy and thoughts unaware.

It is -- not unpleasant. In fact, with the warmth of sleep still clinging to his skin, his moving and shifting is quite enjoyable. The sheets feel soft and pleasant as they slide and slip against his skin. Like silk. Like an intimate touch. In fact, if he lets himself, in the foggy haze of sleep, he can imagine inquisitive hands drifting over his body, exploring the open expanse of skin. It has been so long since anyone touched him, outside of the shaking of hands at a work function, or the brush of a stranger against his arm. He didn’t think he missed it, that intimate contact, until now.

He hears a soft noise, a faint and vocalized breath, and realizes it came from him. Faintly, he feels embarrassment for making a noise of contentment, but then he realises: what’s the point? No one is here to judge him, no one is here to _hear_ in the first place. It’s just him, the sensations, and the softness of his bed.

By god, how he misses the caress of someone else, especially now, half awake and groggy. There’s nothing quite like rolling over in the middle of the night to find someone’s body there, someone to wrap around, to fold into. He brings a hand down, his arm still heavy and slow, and palms himself with a light touch. _Fuck_. He hears his own breath, loud in the quiet stillness of his room.

He doesn’t open his eyes, content to relish in his little fantasy where he isn’t alone.

His skin is hot under his fingers, soft. Foreign, almost. It’s easy to start to lose himself in the feeling, in the short, gentle touches. When Hux normally touches himself, it’s cursory. He doesn’t draw the experience out with soft fingertips and lingering brushes -- he typically gets straight down to business. Now, at three in the morning and half asleep, there is no urgency. He wants the strangeness of it, wants to keep imagining that he isn’t alone, isn’t the one touching himself.

His brain allows that fantasy like he’s living it, falling into the idea with fervor.

With a whine, he pushes his hips against his hand as he teases himself, pretending he isn’t in charge of his own actions. But, like a stern stranger, he doesn’t give in to his own pleading, even after quiet, perfect moments of rutting against his own palm. He keeps his fingers light, inquisitive. They map the curves of his body, the divots of his hips, the small expanse of soft curls at the base of his cock. His thumb runs over the head, gathering the slick there to spread it down his length. Wet, warm, tender.  

Like before, he imagines looking at himself, splayed out on the bed like this, like a masterpiece. He milks it, makes a show for his imaginary audience. Lazily stretching out with his heavy limbs, hips rocking against the air, against soft fingertips and his palm. If he imagines with true intensity, he can feel warm breath over his skin, puffs of air over his thighs, his abdomen, his cock. He can almost, _almost_ imagine what it would feel like to have that breath turn into the hot heat of a tongue.

Hux whines, lets himself relish the noise as if he’s the observer. It’s hot, embarrassing. It makes his head swim, plunging him even further into his own dreamy fantasy. His head spins, his thoughts cloud with fatigue and arousal. The thought of someone’s tongue on him is enough to get his breathing heavier, his pants echoing in his own ears. He imagines the wet warmth of a mouth enveloping him. Hot. Slick. He grips the base of himself, thrusts his cock into that heat, gasping. It feels so _real,_ with his consciousness shrouded in the pleasant fog that it’s in. Real enough that he can lose himself in the fantasy, real enough that he can gasp out a wet moan.

He bucks his hips again, imagines the force of hands holding him down firm against the bed. It’s comforting, trapping, possessive -- it’s _hot_. The heat around his cock works him over as he strokes himself at the base. If he moves any higher, it’ll destroy the fantasy -- but at this point, it’s so strong he can practically feel the ridges of lips moving against his skin.

The mouth on him is lazy, unhurried. Teasing and exploring, like they have hours, days. Infinite time.

Hux writhes with the feeling, legs stretching out until his toes push the sheets off the bed, hips rising off the mattress with his enjoyment. Fuck, it’s so _good_. Pleasure entwines with his dreams and his fantasies, with every breath he takes. Reality fades in favor of whatever halfway-between this is. Colors swirl behind his closed eyes, and the sensations pull him in every direction.

The warmth on his cock gets hotter, tighter. The movement becomes slicker, more urgent as his pleasure climbs. He cannot keep his hips from bucking, his breath from catching, his moans from getting louder and more insistent. The sweat gathers on his skin -- he can almost swear he feels a palm run easy down his chest, fingers coiling in the moisture. It is a possessive movement, and Hux relishes it, too asleep to be embarrassed by his own subconscious. Right now, his fantasy partner wants to own him, to devour him, and Hux simply can’t get enough of it.

A tongue, long and dripping, laps at the head of his cock, swirling around it with insistent fervor. It’s glorious, hot, dirty. He imagines the warm spit dripping down his cock, getting under his fingers, making the slide of his own hand easier. He pumps himself faster, writhing on the bed under greedy, grasping hands.

He can barely keep himself together, can hardly keep his thoughts straight.

Hips buck into a gaping, warm mouth.

A heated tongue coils around his cock until he feels spit drip over his hand, onto his thighs.

Teeth slide against him, sharp and careful. Threatening.

Everything is so much, racing quickly toward a peak he can barely begin to fathom.

Faster -- harder -- hotter.

His thoughts snake toward filthy and depraved. His imagines hands pushing his hips down against the bed, hard enough that fingertips leave bruises that’ll last for days. He imagines that mouth engulfing his whole length, unrelenting enough that he can only grip the base of his cock with shaking fingers, can only barely keep himself breathing. It’s so much. Too much. It’s perfect.

“ _Please_ ,” he manages, his voice breathy and wrecked. “Please, _please_ let me --” he begs into the darkness. Behind his closed eyes, his fantasy smiles, grins -- and then gives in. There is nothing in his ears but static, no response to his plea, but Hux knows, _knows_ suddenly beyond a doubt that he has to let go, has to give himself up because he has been told to.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he cries out, the word echoing in the empty room around him. His body shakes, shivers; he is wracked with pleasure, hit with the force of it like a freight train. The orgasm is expected, a foregone conclusion, and yet it is still a surprise. It whites out his vision, makes the colors behind his eyelids swirm with whites and yellows.

Unwittingly, he opens his eyes while the shivers of pleasure are still fading, only to see something standing, looming over him in the darkness.

He pants and gasps, brain trying to abruptly pull reality and consciousness together at the same time. It’s hard -- his thoughts fight him, the pull of sleep is so much and so strong now. It feels a bit like he’s suddenly tumbling down a cliff toward unconsciousness and he has no idea how to fight it. Desperately, he tries to wake up fully, tries to focus his closing eyes on the too-dark figure in the void of his room. He tries to move his arm, to grab at the hand that brushes over his stomach, but he can’t -- he can’t move at all, can only blink and pant and whine, low in his throat. He can feel phantom fingertips brush over his abs, down to his hips, slick with his own sweat, with the spit that dripped onto his skin.

 _Wait_ , he wants to say, to the laughter he can hear in the darkness. That smile in the void -- too many teeth. That grin, just the same as the man from his yard, from his basement. From the creature in the shadows of his house. _Wait,_ Hux pleads in his own head, thinking, in the most ludicrous of ways, that he didn’t get to say _thank you_. It’s -- it’s only polite.

No -- he’s too tired, too sleep addled. That’s ridiculous. He wants to complain, to yell, to demand answers. To sleep, and realize that this was all a dream.

He blinks slowly, again and again, longer each time. Whenever he opens his eyes, he still isn’t alone. Not like every other time. There’s still something, someone in the room with him. Watching.

Hux falls asleep to the gentle press of fingers to the skin of his stomach, to the brushing of fingertips across his thighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter:  
> • **sort-of-gore** : hux imagines the process of cutting his own arm open.  
> • **dubcon** : hux receives a blowjob while he is only half-conscious.


	6. Chapter 6

The morning light, warm against his face, is what finally wakes Hux. The process is languid and gentle and terribly indulgent. For once, drifting awake feels just as pleasant as easing himself into a warm bath. There is nothing startling to drag him out of sleep, nothing to force him out of bed before he is ready. When he finally opens his eyes, his room is bathed in the kind and easy light of early morning. His toes curl against the sheets when he stretches, lazy and slow. His skin slides against smooth cotton.

Hux turns over and drifts, for a while.

Eventually, the morning’s light becomes more real, more sincere. Eventually it pulls Hux from his own dreamlike state, into the world of bright, but slightly groggy consciousness. His eyes focus on the room around him -- average and normal, nothing amiss. The events of the previous night come back to him, but the memory of it all is too coated in wool, in the haze of sleep. At the time, it had felt real, but it surely must have been a dream.

Hux recalls when he was a young teen, having a dream that had felt so real that when he had awoken from it, it had been hard to pry apart the pieces of fantasy from reality. To this day, he isn’t entirely sure if some lingering parts of ot are his memories or if they are fabrications of his own mind. That’s exactly how he feels now -- trying in vain to sort out his thoughts in any sort of reasonable manner. It _must_ have been a dream -- that is the only real explanation.

At least it the only real explanation Hux is going to tolerate before his first cup of coffee.

Questioning realities and differing planes of existence are best done after at least two cups of coffee, in Hux’s experience. Now that he has some sort of experience with this, apparently.

He tugs on a worn undershirt and some threadbare trousers. He can see his own skin through how thin the shirt is, but doesn’t matter. The hole in the hem by his waist doesn’t matter either, other than to give his hands something to toy with. He has no work today and fatigue still clings to his bones -- he’s going to at least dress comfortably. His own pride keeps him from wearing pajama pants during the day; he’s still a real, functioning person, despite all of the madness going on in his house. It’s a silly, trite idea, but he figures he’s allowed to grasp on tightly to any amount of sane reality he has left. Routine is good, routine is what will keep him functioning through all of this.

After putting on clothes, he goes about the rest of his morning routine, ending finally with a few stretches in the middle of his bedroom. They keep him limber and relaxed, and they do a decent job of draining some of the sleep from his muscles. His shoulders feel lighter, afterwards. His head, clearer.

Without more thought to the previous night’s activities, he pads down the stairs to the ground floor on bare feet, toes scuffing at the rug on the stairs.

When he gets to the bottom of the stairs, warm feet against the cold of the wood floors of the main level, he pauses. The faint hum of television static is unmistakable amidst the quiet sounds of morning. The birds and the traffic and the crickets are all muffled by the closed windows, but the static is loud in comparison.

Hux’s heartbeat skips in his chest, a staccato fluttering of something he doesn’t like to admit to calling fear. After all of the previous months in his house, the constant and vague nipping of fear at his heels has grown familiar -- but still, he cannot help but occasionally feel afraid. Even though he has become numb to most of it, there are still some things that always have goosebumps cascading down his spine and his blood running cold in his veins. The doors slamming and the shadows in the corners of his eyes have him sighing in frustration, not startling or gasping. Instead, it’s the new things that get him, things that he hasn’t grown used to, that haven’t grown to be a part of his daily routine.

Stumbling upon his television on the hum of static first thing in the morning is new. Normally he fights with the TV before it does anything out of the ordinary. Months ago, right when he had moved in, he could have written it off as a random power surge -- but now, Hux knows better.

There is never anything random about what happens here.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out to the count of five. _It’s fine_ ; it’s just static. There’s nothing overwhelmingly ominous about static. All he needs to do is cross the living room, grab the remote, and turn the television off. Then, he can have his coffee and all will be right with the world. As his heartbeat slows, he feels more relaxed. It’s perfect.

Hux is about to move -- until the channel changes with a loud and triumphant noise, switching quickly into a documentary. From the jarring sound of it, the documentary sounds like it’s about the ocean -- the deep sea, to be specific. Hux has seen it before. After a couple seconds, the channel changes again, loud and aggressive -- to an infomercial -- to the news -- to a car commercial. It continues changing, faster and faster, until it’s simply a hum of indistinguishable noise. Hux has a hard time trying to keep his heart contained in his chest. It’s too much for the early morning, too much before coffee -- just _too much_.

It’s easier to hold on to anger and annoyance to suppress the fear in his chest, so Hux does. He holds tight to his frustration and finds himself stomping across the empty living room on bare feet. He grabs the remote from where it’s laying forgotten on the couch, and jams his finger down on the power button.

Nothing happens.

“For the love of --” Hux curses, jabbing at the button multiple times to no avail. The cacophony of the television grows louder and louder until Hux embarrassingly loses his temper, throwing the remote in the direction of the screen. It bounces off a plastic corner and falls, with a soft thud, to the floor. It’s not satisfying at all.

And yet -- the television pauses in its rotation between channels, on a forensic crime show. Hux can’t tell which one it is -- there’s too many and he can’t tell the difference. It’s suddenly blissfully quiet, even with the soft drone of voices in a too-bright lab on the screen. Hux’s heart is pounding in his chest, and at this point he cannot reliably determine if it’s in fear or in anger. All he knows is that the hurricane of noise is gone. He watches a scientist pipette samples onto glass slides, watches the microscope magnify trace pieces of evidence in a way that might be considered artistic.

The channel abruptly switches to a commercial -- of an attractive man drinking a cup of coffee that most certainly did not come out of the automated single-serve coffee maker it claims to have.

“Not subtle,” Hux sighs. But he relents and retreats to the kitchen to make himself some coffee.

\--

Hux drinks his coffee outside. He puts cream and sugar in it because he feels like he deserves that sort of indulgence. There are becoming more and more indulgence-deserving days, as of late.

Today, however, everything seems perfectly normal in his garden, despite the fiasco with the television only minutes previous. It’s hard to grow complacent, though, when the atmosphere of his house, his property, insists on changing abruptly and without any notice. Just because everything seems sunny and carefree one moment, it doesn’t mean Hux won’t be staring down a monster in the next. Complacency is akin to laziness, and his father always told him that laziness is the route to all evil.

Ignoring the fact that Hux lives in a house that is probably pretty evil, all things considered.

He takes a sip of his coffee and leans back in his chair, watching Millicent slip through the few-inch crack he left in the door. Hux only lets her out when he’s around -- even though she still ends up outside, anyway. At least this way he has her company and knows where she is -- and he can tell himself that he is a responsible pet owner. Having her around makes him feel a little less alone in this strange world of his -- even though he knows, hair-raisingly, that he is never quite alone. Even when he doesn’t feel the presence of something breathing down his neck, the tingling sensation of being watched, he feels like he can never let down his guard. He may be alone one second, and traumatized into a world of absolute nothingness the next -- letting his vigilance slip is just not an option.

But, when he thinks about it, it all comes back around to his house being evil. The question is: _is it, though_ ? When it all comes down to it, is his house inherently out to get him in a malicious manner? Despite learning a new definition to the feeling of fear and growing accustomed to a new level of personal hell, Hux has never been _hurt_ by his house -- or whatever is living inside of it. It has never harmed him. If his dream last night has anything to do with it, it’s the exact opposite, really. It may still be out to get him, but it certainly doesn’t seem to want to do true _harm_.

But there’s no way to prove it, no way to test the theory. Other than time, perhaps.

The breeze shifts, ruffling up his hair, bringing the smell of late-summer to him. It’s a beautiful time of the year, only sullied by the promise of mid-day sun to redden his skin if he stays outside too long. Already, he can tell he has more freckles on his arms, on his face, just from the mornings he spends outside on the patio. Every year they come and fade, and every year Hux scoffs at himself in the mirror because of it. They cannot help but remind him of his childhood, a vestige of it that he just cannot seem to shed.

He finishes the last dredges of his coffee, wincing around a few grinds, and heads inside. He ushers Millicent on from her lazy perch on the table, but she won’t budge. With some pretend annoyance and far too much affection, Hux picks her up and holds her to his chest with one arm. Coffee cup in his other hand, he pushes the door open wide enough for him to squeeze through with a bundle of cat in his arms, and then stops in the doorway, stock-still.

His eyes fall on it instantly on the television; it’s back on again.

It’s blaringly loud, and Hux has a feeling the volume increased the moment he set foot inside, because he couldn’t hear a lick of it while he’d been outside enjoying his coffee. The quiet sanctity of his morning was only broken when he had decided to come back inside.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hux mutters to himself, for what feels like the hundredth time this year.

Before he can make his way over to the television, Millicent still in hand, something catches his attention out of the corner of his eye. He can see the couch if he doesn’t move, but only slightly. The space around it, above it, where someone would sit, flickers for a moment like static on a television screen. Hux has learned, now, to not make any quick movements, or he’ll entirely ruin his chances of seeing anything at all. Not that he particularly wants to -- but it’s the principle of the thing.

The space above the couch flickers again, then turns dark. Darker. Pitch black. Hux’s stomach drops in his chest. From the corner of his eye, there is very clearly something sitting on his couch. The same something from the basement, from the yard, from every shadow Hux has ever seen shift inside his house. He knows that it is the same, knows it beyond a doubt.

He can’t look.

He wants desperately to look.

Millicent, at this point, has gone stock-still in his arm. She knows better than to move, to jump and run to safety.

Hux thinks, briefly, that there’s nowhere safe in the house, not really. There is nowhere _safe_ from this thing that comes and goes as it pleases. Not from the shadows and the darkness.

He can’t look, but slowly he turns his head anyway. The closer and closer it gets to being in focus, the more real it becomes. It shifts in his peripheral -- too many teeth, too many eyes, too many sharp edges. It’s darker than anything he has ever seen before, consuming all of the light around it.

Hux gets the distinct impression that whatever it is, it’s staring directly at him, too.

The closer and closer it gets to being right in the center of Hux’s vision, the more and more ominous it appears. Dark, fractal, malicious.

Until Hux is looking right at it, that is.

This time, it does not disappear. The darkness shifts instantly until Hux is staring at something else entirely.

“ _What the_ \--,” Hux whispers, staring at the man currently sitting in a comfortable sprawl on his couch. It’s the same man as yesterday, from the garden. The same man from the basement. He is perfectly normal, all things considered. Inky black hair and pale skin dotted with constellations of moles. His eyes are dark, but a forgiving and inviting chocolatey brown -- and he’s staring straight at Hux with an expression that couldn’t be anything other than amusement.

“Hello,” he says, and Hux hears the familiar voice from the shadows. He also hears a perfectly average human voice overlayed on top of that. Full of bells and delight and intrigue. He hears it again, in an echo in his head:

**_hello, hello hello,_ **

Achingly familiar.

“Hello,” Hux echoes, because he can’t think of anything else at the moment. No words are coming to him, not even ones of scorn or annoyance. Not like the first time, when he had demanded too hard that this man get out of his house. This man, this -- _home intruder_.

Except he’s not that, is he? He’s not a robber, not a criminal -- no, he’s probably been in the house as long as Hux has owned it. Maybe even longer.

The man smiles, and Hux can see all of his teeth. So many, and just enough -- not any more than normal. “You’re welcome,” he says, flopping a lazy arm over the top of the couch. “You fell asleep before you could thank me.”

“ _What_ ,” Hux says, holding Millicent a bit tighter to his chest. There is a very real fear that if he sets her down he will be lost again, like the time the darkness and the void overcame him in his basement. The living room is bright and airy, but he knows that can change in an instant. Everything can change. She doesn’t seem to mind.

“Last night,” the man says, and makes some sort of gesture. It’s so convoluted that Hux has _absolutely_ no idea what it could be referring to. Or he wouldn’t, if he wasn’t sure of the context, anyway. A warm flush ghosts over Hux’s cheeks. After the man settles, Hux isn’t even sure he moved his arms at all. He’s stock-still -- it’s a tossup that he is even breathing.

“Who are you?” Hux asks instead of answering, because he’s not about to follow that line of conversation, not going to allow it to progress at all if he can manage it. Moments ago, he hadn’t even remembered the previous night; now, it all comes flooding back to him. The more he thinks about it, the warmer he can feel his ears become with embarrassment.

The man pauses, worrying at his lip with his teeth like he’s thinking, like it’s a difficult question. His lips are full, with just the faintest flush of pink. his face is all angles, all perfect -- every inch of him. He closes his eyes in thought and dark eyelashes brush against his cheeks before he opens them again, fixing Hux with a stare that he cannot look away from. “Hm. You can call me Kylo Ren.”

“That’s an absurd name,” Hux says, because it’s true. He knows that he should have a bit more care here, a bit more caution: this man is dangerous. This man is not a man at all. But Hux cannot stop himself from criticizing, from speaking his mind.

The man laughs. It’s an appealing and dissonant noise, both chilling and warming the cavity of Hux’s chest at the same time. He laughs and laughs, and he is so beautiful Hux has to look away -- and that’s perhaps the worst mistake he’s made all day. The second Hux’s eyes drift off the man on his couch, he is no longer there. No -- that’s not quite right. There _is_ something there, the same something that Hux saw before. When he looks at the couch out of the corner of his eye, he can only see the monster made out of pure void, pure darkness. It is a chilling and malevolent looking thing, and all Hux’s body wants to do is _run_ at the half-sight of it. But the second he looks back, focuses his eyes on the couch and the creature on it -- all he can see is the man. All he can see is Kylo Ren.

For the pure sake of it, Hux looks back and forth a couple times. Each time, Kylo slides out of his vision and into the monster in the corner of his eye. Each time, when Hux refocuses his eyes on him, he becomes a perfectly normal man once more.

Kylo Ren smiles slowly at him, and Hux cannot stop his arm from curling tighter around Millicent, just as he cannot stop the fluttering in his chest when he looks at those pearly whites. Fear, excitement, intrigue, terror. He can’t quite choose which. Instead, he cycles between every strong emotion, the strongest of any he’s felt outside of childhood.

“If you looked at me, that would probably be easier for you,” Kylo Ren says, his voice a cacophony of dissonant noises after Hux’s stare settles firmly to the side, one foot to the left of the man. It is gut-wrenching, trying to look at all of those teeth, at that absolute darkness, while not actually looking -- but Hux is stubborn.

“I _am_ looking at you,” Hux says to the rows of teeth. After a moment, his eyes dart back to the man and Kylo is sitting right there, normal and welcoming as can be. Smiling, with a laugh on the corners of his lips. Hux isn’t really sure which he prefers looking at more, the man or the creature of darkness -- they both make his stomach twist and churn in unpleasant ways. Even when Hux is looking at the man, his body and brain instinctively know the danger that lurks right under his skin. Or what Hux perceives as skin, anyway.

Kylo Ren shifts on the couch and the television turns off. His attention is very clearly otherwise occupied -- by Hux.

“You aren’t,” Kylo Ren says, like he’s surprised that Hux refuses to look at the seemingly easier version of him.

“Aren’t I?” Out of the corner of his eye, Hux can see the monster. He doesn’t need to look at the man.

What he probably needs to do is leave his house immediately.

Something twisting in between his ribs, however, tells him that won’t solve the problem. Kylo was outside yesterday -- he doesn’t seem bound inside the walls, the foundation of Hux’s house.

“You’re thinking about running. I don’t recommend it.”

Fear, cold and slimy, slithers down Hux’s throat and settles in his gut. Heavy, like a lead weight. _Great_. This thing can either read minds, or Hux’s expression is far more transparent than he’d ever like to admit. “Stay out of my head.”

The man on the couch laughs and it comes out as a melody, however discordant. He moves, shifting with laughter, and each time he moves, he shifts a little out of focus. It’s greatly troubling, but an instant wave of relief washes over Hux, sudden and jarring: he is not crazy. All of this is real, all of this is currently sitting on his couch and laughing at his expense.

There is a monster in his house, and it’s not all a terrible imagining of Hux’s brain.

“I’m not in your head,” Kylo Ren finally manages through his mirth. He puts his elbows on his knees and lets his hands fall between his legs, looking altogether too comfortable, too human, too _much_. He is dreadfully attractive -- or he would be, if it weren’t for the too-many teeth Hux sees when he doesn’t look hard enough. Or when he looks _too_ closely. Kylo would be perfect, it weren’t for the slow shift of his form into that of a shadow, whenever Hux glances to the side. “You just think loudly. There’s a difference.”

Hux doesn’t really see a difference, but he’s also not sure he wants to have that argument now. Considering Kylo Ren has been in his house for this long, it doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere fast. There are plenty of other mornings Hux can look into the too-dark shadows in the corners of his house and try to pick a fight -- but it’s difficult when he’s staring a monster in the face. Kylo Ren is too real right now, too capable of absolutely anything. Hux is a smart man: he won’t throw his weight around until he truly knows what this man is capable of, as well as what he wants. Hux would like to know that too, though he’s pretty sure he already does.

Hux looks down at Millicent, who has started struggling a bit in his arms. He sets her down, watching the wisps and coils of darkness that catch his eye when he isn’t looking fully at his couch. Millicent takes one look at Kylo Ren, hisses, and scampers away and up the stairs.

Hux wishes he could also run away and hide under a blanket pretending the world doesn’t exist because he can’t see it. Alas, this is a problem he cannot ignore. It is likely a problem that will not _let_ him ignore it.

“Can you,” Hux says while looking at the wall, blank white and boring, gesturing sideways at the monster  on his couch with a frown, “you know -- stop that?” It’s making Hux dizzy, trying to keep up with the shifting and bending of reality. It’s also rather difficult, and against every instinct he has, to address someone while purposefully not looking at them directly. It also seems somehow fitting, given that Hux has been having conversations with his house, with the shadows, for months now.

“Not really.”

Hux sighs. “Of course you can’t.”

“I also don’t really want to.”

Of course, that too. “You are somehow _less pleasant_ than I thought you would be.”

“So you imagined me?” Kylo’s delight drips from his voice, clings to Hux’s bones. It’s altogether too unpleasant. A bit too reminiscent of the previous night, actually.

Hux stiffens his shoulders and looks at the man again with narrowed eyes. “I certainly did not.” Even though it’s a lie and they both know it.

\--

Hux isn’t really sure how or why, but an hour later he’s sitting in his living room in one of his chairs, facing Kylo on the couch.

“You could come sit next to me,” Kylo Ren had said, patting the sofa next to him, after Hux had grabbed a fresh cup of coffee.

“Absolutely not,” Hux had replied.

Still, he hasn’t absconded from the man’s presence entirely. Hux is too much of a masochist for that, apparently. Too curious. Too beyond frustrated. Also perhaps too smart to run from the monster in his house like admitting to being prey. Instead, Hux had dragged one of the chairs from the dining table, had positioned it across from Kylo Ren, and had placed himself carefully down on it like he was about to interrogate a prisoner.

He also had to try very hard to not think that, in this situation, he was closer to the prisoner than Kylo Ren.

Still.

The coffee is good, even on his third cup. He also feels like he needs it. He deserves it, too.

For a while, they hadn’t talked. Hux had just stared at the man, refusing to take his eyes off him for long periods of time.

It’s a little comforting, having Kylo Ren right there where Hux can see him, where he doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, even when Hux looks away.

It’s difficult to make smalltalk with a monster, Hux decides. Is he supposed to talk about the weather, his choice in decorations, the moles that dot Kylo Ren’s skin?

“This is very disorienting,” Hux relents. It feels a bit like giving in, but he also feels like he should explain the look he knows he’s getting in his eyes every time he loses focus on the other man. He’s dizzy, and tired, and far too relieved. Kylo Ren is currently still sitting on the couch, but is bent in half at the waist, reaching out across the living room with his hand, trying to entice Millicent to come closer. The cat is rightfully dubious, sitting right at Hux’s feet, as still as a statue. But she’s out at least and not hiding, even though Kylo Ren is making truly ridiculous noises trying to beckon her over to him.

“That’s not going to work,” Hux says. He reaches down and brushes his fingers over the velvety top of Millicent’s head. She meows in response, but doesn’t take her eyes off Kylo Ren. “You sound absurd.”

“She doesn’t like me.” Petulant. It’s hard to remember by the second that this ridiculous man is no man at all, but a being of shadow and void that Hux can barely comprehend.

“Of course she doesn’t like you.” The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. “ _I_ don’t like you.” There doesn’t seem to be all that much to like.

Kylo Ren doesn’t seem discouraged. “That’s fine. You will.” Hux finds that hard to believe.

Hux sighs and plucks Millicent up to place her on his lap. She goes willingly, even though she seems reluctant to take her eyes off the stranger. Hux wonders, briefly, if she sees the man too, or only the monster. When her eyes dart over him, does she see a smiling human face, or does she see a malicious grin with too many teeth.

“Why are you in my house, Kylo Ren?”

“It’s a nice house.”

Hux waits for him to elaborate, but he seems content to continue making soft, too human noises at Millicent, even though she is comfortably curled on Hux’s lap and looking at him with disdain. Eventually, he speaks again. “You can call me Kylo, if you want.” Like they are acquaintances, bordering on friends. Not like he is a monster cohabitating with Hux without permission. Not like Hux has spent countless nights wondering if he was losing his mind because of Kylo Ren himself.

Hux makes a noncommittal noise. He’d rather not call the man anything at all, especially a name so absurd it sounded made up on the spot -- but alas, he has no other options. “I don’t suppose you would leave if I asked you to.” Hux pauses, considering; he might as well get all the answers he can. “ _Can_ you leave?”

“I like it here. I like you.” Kylo smiles, and Hux could very clearly count the too-many teeth if he so wished. A shiver runs down his spine again. “I’m not leaving. I could if I wanted to, but I want to stay.”

“Of course.”

“Besides, you’re a very nice person to exist around. You’re very -- colorful.” _Beautiful_. The word is unspoken, but it rings through Hux’s head, clear as day. Just like the greetings he would hear from the shadows -- a faint echo, this time like a harp.

Hux frowns and repeats the spoken word: “Colorful.” He’d like an explanation, but he’s not sure he wants to ask. He feels like he’ll get one anyway.

“Your hair,” Kylo, at least, doesn’t disappoint. Maybe Hux had been thinking his confusion loudly enough. “It’s so bright. Your skin, your flush, your freckles.” Kylo leans in, and Hux cannot stop his heart from beating faster; this monster is a predator, and his body is so aware of it. “The blood in your veins. The red shines through the darkness.”

Another full body shiver courses over Hux, settling this time in the base of his spine. It’s one thing knowing that there is a creature that exists in the shadows of his house, in the liminal spaces -- it’s another to know that Hux is like a beacon to him, a light in the darkness. His hair, his freckles, his _blood._ A wave of nausea washes over him, unbidden and unwelcome -- he cannot stop the fear, as much as he would like to. As much as he would like to normalize this with some sort of rationality, he cannot. His body is stubbornly set on fear and his mind is, for one, in agreement. There is nothing about this situation that is not _dangerous_.

“It’s so easy to see you,” Kylo Ren says with a smile. His human eyes are a warm, earthy brown -- but Hux can see the red in them, the thirst.

Hux can hear the sound his throat makes when he swallows, cannot help but feel like it echoes like a gunshot throughout the entire room.

Kylo grins, and then instantly the couch is empty once more.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for warnings, please see the end notes

The rest of the day passes in a blur.

Hux is _exhausted_ , straight down to the bone. He’s not sure if it’s his body, still tired from the previous night, or his brain, which is probably still trying to adjust to a new concept of reality. Regardless: he is wiped.

Ultimately, he isn’t sure if it’s the aura of fatigue he knows is clinging to him, or the dirty looks he keeps shooting at the shadows, but Kylo Ren leaves Hux alone for the rest of the day. Maybe Kylo is just busy. Maybe he’s bored. Maybe he’s tired too, from his little stint with reality on the couch. It doesn’t really matter _why_ \-- just that Hux has a breather, a few moments where his life approaches normal.

He can’t actively forget anymore that his life has been irrevocably intertwined with one of a horror story victim. In the beginning, he found himself forgetting the circumstances and consequently jumping at every slammed door, every moving shadow. Now, he expects it. He looks for it, even. When nothing happens, he looks harder -- and is usually graced with something strange afoot. He knows what to look for, knows the general feeling of electricity in the air before something strange happens. The ominous nature of the activity is something he’s learned how to pick up on, simply by merit of it happening often enough. But now, after the incident on the couch, he feels like he can relax. He couldn’t say exactly what it is that makes him feel that way -- but his body and his brain tell him that there is no reason to be on alert.

And so, Hux goes about his day like a normal person. He leaves to get groceries and run a few other errands. He pauses and eats a late lunch in a park next to his favorite sandwich place. He gathers his dry cleaning, cat food, and a few other odds and ends and leisurely makes his way home as the sun is beginning to set.

When he opens the front door, hands full, he is greeted only by Millicent. She looks up at him and meows plaintively, as if she hasn’t eaten in days.

Nothing is amiss.

“Yes, yes,” Hux says, fondness clear in his voice. “Your life is very difficult and you are starving because no one ever feeds you. I’m negligent. I know.” She meows again in response, twisting and twining around his ankles as he moves into the kitchen to begin putting the groceries away. When all of the groceries are taken care of, Hux pours Millicent a bowl of expensive, organic food. She doesn’t like it quite as much as the cheap stuff he’s bought before in emergencies, but it’s better for her and because of it, her coat is sleek, soft, and thick. He flakes a few pieces of canned tuna over the top as a concession, and because both of them had a relatively rough morning.

After Kylo had disappeared, Millicent had perked up, instantly going from cautious to carefree. Her unconcerned demeanor is part of the reason Hux feels more at ease now. He knows, when Millicent starts slinking around and staring too hard at things Hux cannot see, that it’s time to be on guard again.

He makes a moderately complicated dinner, involving many sides and sauces and too many dishes in the sink. He is not interrupted even once by the slamming of doors or the feeling of something breathing down his neck. It’s strange, and somehow strangely...unwelcome. Perhaps he has just gotten used to looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t _miss_ it, but it feels so foreign now: feeling alone in his own house, even with Millicent right next to him.

The feeling of relative calm lasts through the night. He sleeps soundly and peacefully, and when he wakes up in the morning, his bedroom door is still open. All of the doors are still open. When he brushes his teeth, he is the only one in the mirror. In the shower, he is blissfully and totally alone. The dust motes  in the morning sunbeams float slowly and steadily. Nothing is out of place, nothing disturbed.

It’s irritating.

Hux can’t say why, exactly -- but the emptiness of the house, the lack of _anything_ , feels pretty damn passive aggressive.

It feels like Kylo, the void itself, is fucking with him.

It’s noon by the time Hux twists backwards while he’s climbing the stairs, finally fed up enough to do something about it. Looking down at his living room, it’s bright and airy and totally empty. There are no shadows creeping in, nothing amiss.

“That’s _it,_ ” Hux says, to probably nothing. “What is your problem? What the fuck do you want from me?”

He gets nothing in response.

The house is quiet for the rest of the day, and through the night once again.

\--

Hux forgets his annoyance when he decides to make himself crepes for breakfast the next morning. He has a few pieces of work to do during the day, but nothing so pressing that he can’t take his time with a leisurely breakfast. After all, he basically works for himself, all things considered -- so he can be the master of his own schedule. If he wants to have a lie in, or a four course breakfast (as heavy as that might be), he can -- as long as he gets his work done.

He doesn’t normally indulge so frequently -- but life has been trying lately. He feels like he deserves at least something.

It’s as he’s carefully folding some rose jam, conscientious of the fragile petals, onto a perfectly formed crepe, that the calm is finally broken.

“That looks good,” says a voice in his ear. It is smooth and low, and spoken from right behind his shoulder. Hux cannot help but startle, shoulders tensing before he twists and comes face to face with Kylo Ren.

The man looks all too human, standing in the middle of Hux’s kitchen in a black threadbare shirt and destroyed jeans. Where does he even get clothes from, anyway? The wisps of darkness Hux caught in his peripheral when he turned are all too familiar, and they stick with Hux still, unforgettable in his memory. He can never forget about the darkness that surrounds Kylo Ren, no matter how harmless the man looks.

Not that he looks _too_ threatening now, standing with his hands in his pockets and a boyish smirk on his face. His posture is open, deceptively friendly. He looks up to no good, devious and treacherous. And a little too alluring to ignore.

“Can you even eat?” Hux says. He should be scared, but now that the instant and inescapable shock from being startled has faded, he can only find annoyance within him, gritty and sour.

Kylo laughs, and Hux feels like he can hear it for days, echoing in all of the corners of his house. “I can, if I want to.” Kylo takes a step forward, threatening, and Hux takes a step back in turn. His back hits the counter; he feel the cold press of marble through his shirt, sharp and sudden. Kylo is close -- mere inches from him, and yet Hux feels no heat emanating from his body -- no coldness either.

Hux’s heartbeat kicks up, thundering in his chest, but he doesn’t budge. His eyes _do_ dart from Kylo to his potential routes for escape, and the flickers of darkness and void every time Hux’s vision shifts are dizzying. Eventually, he lets his eyes fall back on Kylo, who simply looks amused.

“You know, I can feel when you’re not looking at me.” He says with a hum. “It feels strange, shifting in and out of focus like that.”

“I’m glad.” Hux wants Kylo Ren  to feel just as strange as Hux does. The sadistic side of him wants to put Kylo through just as much misery as Hux has gone through these past months. He doesn’t know how to do that, so instead he’ll take his small victories. If Hux’s looking elsewhere and then looking back at Kylo makes him feel _strange_ , then Hux will take it.

With resolution, Hux stares longingly at the fridge while darkness swims in his peripherals, then glances briefly at the moles on Kylo’s face, and then back at the fridge.

“I like you,” Kylo says, but when Hux looks back at Kylo’s dotted and angular face once more, he can instantly tell that the man is distracted. Instead of staring intently at Hux like usual, he appears to be looking through the window right over Hux’s shoulder. Hux isn’t at all offended, it’s not like Kylo is distracting _him_ from a rapidly cooling crepe.

Or -- no wait -- Kylo’s not looking through the window at all, but _at_ it. Bafflingly. “ _Oh_ , I look pretty.” Kylo Ren says, tilting his face this way and that, seemingly admiring his reflection in the window. Because of course he is.  He does have quite the selection of sharp angles to appreciate, as well as dark lashes and soulful eyes -- however self-serving that is. For a monster, he’s decently put together. Occasionally, anyway.

“Mm,” Hux hums. The monster must have forgotten what the man looked like; not too many mirrors in the void, he supposes..

Eventually, Kylo tears his eyes from his reflection to look back at Hux. He looks pleased, preening like a proud bird. “I suppose I should thank you for this face.”

Hux only raises his eyebrows. He has taken no part in this -- he has been a victim since he arrived in the house. He is absolved of any blame whatsoever.

Kylo grins. “Well, I mean sort of, anyway. I made some altercations because your tastes are stupid.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“The face, the body -- they’re all just reflections of your desires.”

Hux balks. That couldn’t possibly be true. There is no way that his mind would conjure up something like the man standing in front of him. Sure, he’s not _terrible_ looking -- but he’s also not the man of Hux’s dreams. First, and most importantly: he’s a honest-to-god monster. Hux never considered that one part of his checklist. Secondly -- also importantly, Kylo looks a mess. He’s a disaster, or he would be if he was human. He’s not at all put together; the embodiment of Hux’s desires would be clean-cut, well-groomed, and in a suit, that’s for sure.

“I’m not sure what kind of kicks you’re getting out of lying to me, of fabricating the truth to suit whatever purpose you have -- but I want none of it.”

With that curl of anger in his gut, Hux grabs his plate, a knife and fork, and shoves past Kylo Ren.to make his way into the dining area. When he goes to knock against Kylo’s shoulder, he doesn’t come into contact with anything -- there’s nothing there. But he is left with the taste of dust and smoke in his mouth, and a cloud of void in his peripheral.

He’s never going to get used to that.

At the table, Hux has peace for a moment. It is just him and the quiet scrape and slide of his silverware against porcelain as he eats his crepe. It’s sweet and light, and the floral aroma of the rose petal jam fills him with something buoyant, something near absolution from all this darkness around him. Sometimes he feels weighted down by it, by the void and the fear and the anger -- by Kylo’s presence.

As he cuts another delicate bite and chews, Hux stares at the mark on his arm. It’s still there, as dark and terrible as before -- but it’s less oppressive somehow, less scalding. It catches his eye less and less, just like a tattoo or a scar would. He knows what’s happening and he hates it, hates what it means: Hux is getting _used_ to it. He no longer balks when his eyes catch on the darkness against his pale skin. The contrast is high and it’s difficult to miss, but he cannot argue that it’s less shocking and eye-catching than before.

He runs two fingers over the mark, shivering and pulling goosebumps up when he brushes over the darkened skin. He could pass it off as a tattoo, if he so chose, opposed to keeping it covered. Someone would have to look very closely, too close, to realize it’s too dark to possibly be made from ink and a needle. There’s no hint of skin underneath, no fading ink or blemishes at all. But it’s better than hiding it, of being ashamed or afraid of this terrible thing. It’s not something he did to himself, something to regret; it’s something that happened _to him_ \-- and he refuses to be upset by it.

“Do you like it?”

All of a sudden, Kylo Ren is sitting across from Hux at the table. Hux can tell because while he’s not looking at Kylo, the darkness is still seeping into his vision from the side, in wisps and tendrils. It’s disturbing. It is, however, not altogether hideous.

There is a strange sort of beauty to Kylo Ren, if Hux can convince himself to look past the void and the too many teeth. Past the instinctual coil of fear in his gut, the hairs standing on end on the back of his neck.

When he looks at Kylo, the man and not the monster, there is also a beauty to him as well. As reluctant as Hux is to admit that.

“No,” Hux says, because he doesn’t. He doesn’t like the mark on his arm, doesn’t like that it was put there without his permission by some strange creature of the void that lives in his house. This isn’t his life, despite the fact that he has been living it for months now. He doesn’t want this, and he certainly doesn’t _like_ it.

“Oh.” Kylo Ren has the decency to look sheepish, hurt -- if only for a split second. But it appears that emotions are nebulous for him, mercurial. It’s not an altogether unsurprising character trait. “You’ll like it, eventually,” he says, his expression shifting toward hope.

Hux rolls his eyes and makes a point of cutting the last of his crepe into careful pieces. He eats it slowly. Every bite is savored, even if his current company leaves much to be desired. Hux will not let this be ruined for him -- he will not let his _life_ be ruined just because some monster took a shining to him. He’s not that kind of man; he will not give in so easily.

“If I dreamed you up,” Hux says, feeling ridiculous, “Then _why_ are you wearing torn clothes. It looks awful. I loathe torn clothing.”

“Maybe because subconsciously this is what you yearn for aesthetically.” Kylo studies his nails. For a moment, his hands and fingers are entirely black, his nails impossibly sharp -- then, they look completely normal again. “Anyway, I actually chose the pants. Originally they were tight and leather -- very uncomfortable.” Across the table, Hux can see Kylo run his hands over his thighs, fingertips presumably ghosting over torn jeans -- if they even exist while Hux isn’t looking at them.

Hux tries to keep the blush from his face. He refuses to admit that the idea of leather pants is moderately appealing. Instead, he diverts. “Then why is your hair long? It looks --” _soft, touchable, luscious,_ “-- greasy.”

Kylo merely shrugs. “It felt right.”

Kylo doesn’t elaborate, so Hux just grumbles and gathers his things to bring them back into the kitchen. He has dishes to do, pans to clean. Work to do afterward. A life to live.

While he’s at the kitchen sink, Hux can feel the presence of someone standing behind him. The air is neither cool nor warm, and yet the feeling is is unmistakable: Hux is no longer alone in the kitchen. But he refuses to turn, to acknowledge Kylo again. It’s not his job to keep a bored monster occupied. So, Hux does the dishes. He dries them by hand, simply for the sake of being annoyingly meticulous, instead of putting them in the drying-rack. He cleans the pots and pans, and then goes about cleaning the counters and stove, noting that he feels something hovering behind him the entire time, just like a shadow. It’s not necessarily a heavy or ominous presence, but it is there all the same. Just as one knows a person is standing behind them, some subtle shift in the air or the energy near them, Hux knows that he now has another shadow.

Making no further effort to acknowledge Kylo, Hux moves upstairs into his study to work. Hux feels the need to maintain some normalcy in his life -- it’s an easy way for him to wrap his fingers around reality and refuse to let go.

For a while, he can feel something -- presumably Kylo Ren -- in the room with him. The window is cracked open, the sheer curtain shifting in the breeze. Hux watches, out of the corner of his eye, as one side of it is jostled by an invisible force and then goes abruptly still. The other side still shifts lazily in the moving air. Hux tries to focus on his work, after that, but it’s hard when the light from the window waxes and wanes, too quickly to be the shifting of the sun or even a cloud moved by the wind.

At one point, Hux even feels someone breathing down the back of his neck. It’s neither warm nor cold, but the goosebumps it pulls from his skin travel all the way down his spine. Steadfastly and stubbornly, he ignores that, too. Darkness creeps close to the edge of his vision at times, like someone standing too close on one side or the other.

He works into the evening.

The light from the sun fades into dusk, to twilight, and then into the pitch darkness of night. The study is completely dark around him, illuminated only by the white glow of his monitor. The stark light paints everything as crisp and unreal, and when Hux stretches and spins in his chair to look around him, he realizes just how dark it has gotten. He had neglected to turn on any lights, too absorbed in his work, too focused on ignoring any unwanted distractions.

Now, he regrets his lack of foresight.

While he can see the lines of his bookcases and a small side table illuminated by the light, he cannot see much of anything else. If the room were not his own, if he were not incredibly familiar with it at this point, he would not be able to locate the door, the exit.

Even the space where the window rests is pitch black. There is no light coming in from the streetlamps outside at all -- if Hux wasn’t sure, he would hesitate to say there was a window at all. In fact, he cannot see any of the walls -- the darkness stretches on for leagues. As far as he can imagine.

The spark of fear is instinctual. It’s cold as it hollows out his belly and settles in between his lowest ribs. It sinks its claws into his gut, twists them until his stomach is churning without his consent. He hates how familiar the feeling is. If it weren’t for the glow of his computer illuminating the things closest to him, Hux would think that he was stuck in the darkness that he had been in before, in the basement. The void is growing terrifyingly familiar to him -- as is the feeling that he’s not alone.

Hux takes a breath to pull himself together. He sits up in his chair, squares his shoulders, and speaks: “I know you’re here,” he says. “There’s no point in playing these games any more.”

It’s a shot in the dark, a gamble. So far, Kylo Ren has been neutral in his appearances -- perhaps even slightly beneficial, if it was he who righted Hux from falling down the stairs in one of his early days in the house. But there is no response -- Hux’s words echo strangely and foreignly into the void, falling flat like the room is covered in a carpet of snow.

“ _Kylo Ren_ ,” Hux says sharply, but there is no response. He pauses for a moment, his thoughts in every direction, before he has an idea. He says the name again and lets his palm fall onto the handprint on his arm. Clasping tightly against the dark mark.

Instantly, everything changes.

The computer cuts off with the familiar fizzle of dying electronics and the entire room is suddenly bathed in darkness. It’s inky black, like someone spilled paint over the inside of Hux’s eyelids. There’s no definition to anything, but the darkness lacks any of the fuzziness of a normal lack-of-light. There’s something crisp to it, something solid and touchable. Hux turns from side to side, trying to get his bearings. He can feel the chair underneath him and the floor underneath that. If he reaches back, he can still feel the desk.

Good. At least the world around him is still material. He doesn’t hazard to get up from the chair to see if the walls are where he left them. He fears that if he gets up from his chair, loses contact with it, it will be gone when he gets returns.

Hux’s eyes search the darkness, but find nothing.

Suddenly, there is a noise. There is the faintest sound of scratching in the corner -- but muffled, like the sound is underwater. Hux’s head turns, following the noise, but it’s gone. Then -- it’s there again -- in the the opposite corner. He turns, swiveling in his chair, only to find nothing in the darkness. When he turns back to face the ‘center’ of the room, or where he feels as if it should be, he knows, instinctively, that there is something in front of him.

Hux does not need light to be able to locate Kylo Ren in the darkness, not when he cuts an impossible, inky silhouette against the black of the room.

Hux does not need to be able to see the teeth to know that they are there, snapping with a click at the air underneath his left ear as he feels the wisp of movement against his cheek.

“ ** _Hello,_ ** ” the darkness speaks to him, the words echoing all around.  “ ** _Very good, very smart._ ** ” For a moment, Hux is confused, unsure of what the words are referring to. It takes the soft brush of fingertips over the top of his hand, the one still firmly holding that infernal handprint, to remind him of his actions. Without thinking he’d grasped it like an anchor while saying Kylo’s name. It had only made sense -- it was a part of Kylo that he’d left with Hux -- and Hux cannot help but think of Kylo when he looks at it: always there, a forever-taunt. The action had been thoughtless, subconscious -- but it had been _right._

Hux takes one singular breath to steady himself, to pull himself together. He’s used to this, used to the void and the fear and the desolation. When his words come, they are without fault, dripping with resolve. “Your flair for the dramatic, Kylo, leaves much to be desired.”

Like a cacophony of bells, of birds, laughter rings in his ears. It’s beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way -- like watching a tornado tear through the landscape with ease.

Hux feels the touch of fingertips down his jaw. He steels himself, suppresses the shiver of surprise. He’s not going to give Kylo Ren that satisfaction.

The gentle touch leaves his face. “You don’t _hate_ it.” The darkness speaks to him -- in his ear, behind him, all around the room in every which direction. Omnipresent.

Suddenly, the computer hums to life again, beginning its boot-up process. Hux focuses on it as something familiar, a link to reality. The sound is familiar, the faint hum of electronics. Even without looking, he knows that there are words flickering quickly across the screen. With each pulse of light the computer emits, he can catch a glimpse of the room around him -- still there, still real.

When the main screen pops up, bright in the darkness, Hux very nearly jumps. The light from it, brighter than before, illuminates a face mere inches from his own. He hisses in displeasure and surprise, though he refrains from scooting back in his chair. No -- he must face this challenge head-on.

Crouching right in front of him is Kylo Ren, so close that Hux can feel his breath. It’s strange, almost -- feeling breath coming from something that shouldn’t be real. But then again, like this, Kylo Ren _looks_ real, looks human. Looks solidly tangible. _Touchable_.

Would he be?

It’s an idiotic thought, but once it’s in Hux’s head, it digs its tendrils in, buries roots in his subconscious. Absolutely and steadfastly refuses to leave.

He shouldn’t --

But he does.

Before Hux can think better of it, he’s reaching out with a shaky hand, brushing two fingers down the side of Kylo’s angular face, tracing that chiseled jawline. His skin is neither warm nor cool under Hux’s touch, but it feels so real -- even peppered with the familiar scratch of rough stubble.

Much to Hux’s satisfaction, Kylo Ren looks _surprised_. Hux is too, if he’s being honest with himself. The fact that he actually reached out and made contact of his own volition is surprising -- but then again, Hux is a man of action. A man who wants to know exactly what he’s dealing with, and right now there are so many unanswered questions. Of course, Kylo has touched him before, has grabbed his arm and touched his face -- but Hux wanted to know if he was always tangible, always real, or if it was only on his own terms. Did Kylo have to be the one to reach out? Clearly not. He still doesn’t know if Kylo can disappear at will, lose his corporeal form whenever he so pleases -- but at least Hux has a better grasp on it now.

And at least he knows how to surprise Kylo, who still looks shocked -- eyes wide, expression slack. It’s nice, invigorating and pleasing, knowing that he has some power over him. That for all that Kylo can surprise and startle him, he still has the ability to throw the monster off balance. Hux tries not to take as much satisfaction in that as he truly wants to -- but he does memorize the expression on Kylo’s face for the sake of his own ego.

Hux laughs at Kylo’s expense, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He then raises his palm to Kylo’s cheek and cups it before giving it a curt and condescending pat, and then drops his hand. Even in the low light, Hux can see Kylo’s face swim with red. Briefly, Hux wonders if he has blood underneath that skin, or if it’s just a reflection again of Hux’s own desires.

The possibilities, the uncertainty of it all, makes him dizzy.

Kylo’s face suddenly dawns with _something_ , and lights up. “You _do_ like me.” He grins, and Hux’s vision blurs slightly, enough that he can see the rows and rows of sharp teeth in front of him -- too close. He can’t kill the prey instinct inside him, but he can try to ignore it.

“I most certainly do not.”

A bit of the lightness around Kylo’s eyes fades, but he doesn’t look too off-put. His determination, his resolve, is still as strong as steel. “Well, you touched me. You don’t hate me.”

“I do,” Hux says, even though he knows the words are untrue the second they pass his lips. He wishes he could hate Kylo, perhaps -- but he is too intrigued by him, too annoyed, too flustered. The monster’s resolve, his power, his mystery -- it is all far too appealing. Kylo is anything but boring; he is a mystery to be unwound and solved.

There is an entire world at Hux’s fingertips, a world he never knew existed. And here it is, in his house, trying to get his attention at all hours. The universe is suddenly a far more interesting place.

Kylo grins wider, too wide. His human face nearly splits with the effort of it, all of his shiny teeth exposed in joy. For once, since Hux has seen him as human, the ruse is stretched a little too thin. It looks unnatural. Hideous. Curious. Not altogether too unpleasant to look at.

“You don’t,” Kylo says. His words are fond as he reaches out and cups Hux’s cheeks with his large hands.

Hux braces himself for the fear at being cornered by Kylo, by being contained by his hands and crowded in upon -- but it never comes. For a second, he is dizzy with emotional recoil, expecting something that never happens. But he balances himself quickly, refusing to lose his footing entirely.

“I do.” Hux cannot stop the small slope to his lips, the smirk that settles onto his face. This is a game, of some form or fashion, a vying for control. And Hux knows how to play games. It all comes down to a simple choice: he could sit and feel sorry for himself, feel depressed over the loss of his version of reality -- or he could accept his apparent fate and fight to have his own hand in it. He could shape this part of his reality to his own desires, opposed to remaining complacent and morose.

“You are a despicable creature, Kylo Ren.”

It feels so familiar, having Ren’s mirth so close to him. The monster laughs and laughs, and leans forward to bury his face in Hux’s neck. It feels -- _nice, pleasant, thrilling_ \-- overwhelmingly familiar. Hux frowns, skin between his eyebrows creasing as he looks into the darkness of the room. _Good god._ The realization is shocking, even though it shouldn’t be. Hux grabs at Kylo’s shirt and yanks him backward, watching the monster stumble backward onto his knees before he is looking at the man again.

“It was _you_ ,” Hux growls, feeling more angry and indignant than he perhaps should.

Kylo has the audacity to look confused. “It was me _what_?” It’s infuriating.

“In my room. At night.” Hux says, blush coming warmly to his cheeks. Kylo grins slowly before reaching out and brushing a gentle thumb over Hux’s reddening skin. He knows, from what Kylo has said before, that the red stands out like a beacon in the darkness.

“Oh,” Kylo settles back onto his feet, looking proud and pleased. “Well yeah. You enjoyed yourself, didn’t you?” It’s not a question. Hux knows it isn’t, because he knows that the answer is glaringly obvious. He knows it. Kylo knows it. There’s no escaping the reality of it.

Hux is just annoyed it took him so long to connect the dots. He’d written it all off as a dream, and he’d been recently too preoccupied with Kylo Ren’s impossible existence to truly...ruminate on all of the possibilities. All of the glaringly obvious answers before him. Kylo Ren is truly the creature of his nightmares -- or at least what he thought were his dreams.

“Are you --” Kylo stops and hums, the sound so discordant in Hux’s ears. It warms the darkness around them and suddenly Hux feels a bit more anchored, no longer imagining himself in the cold void of space, alone. He is simply here, in his darkened but not pitch black study, with a monster on his knees before him. The truth of it is disorienting, yet oddly pleasant. “-- embarrassed?” Kylo continues.

“I am not _embarrassed_.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m blushing because I’m _angry_.” He had been in the midst of doing work, of being a productive human being, before Kylo had so rudely interrupted with all of his angles and his teeth.

“I want you to leave,” Hux says, before Kylo can get a word in edgewise. “Go on. Leave me alone.”

Hux feels the faintest brush of lips against his cheek before he is abandoned to the darkness.

\--

Hux drifts lazily toward consciousness in the early hours of the morning, pulled along by some unseen teather. His dreams had been mild -- of the vast emptiness of the ocean, of the comfort of nothingness. It is hard to be aware of the time, head still foggy with sleep, but the lack of light in his room when he slowly blinks his eyes open points to a time well before dusk. He feels rested enough to know that he’s slept for at least a few hours, so it’s probably around three -- the time he is normally awoken because of disturbances in his house.

But there are no echoes of slammed doors ringing in his ears. When he rolls his head to look at the door to his room -- it’s as open as he’d left it hours ago. In fact, nothing truly appears to be amiss, other than the unnatural darkness in the corners of his room that he’s begun to grow accustomed to.

He closes his eyes again, in hopes of finding sleep -- but it’s nowhere near. At this point his body is wide awake and aware enough to hone in on the feeling that dragged him awake to begin with: he is not alone.

Immediately, Hux’s eyes snap open to survey the room. His gaze drifts from one wall to the other, methodically working over every dark shape, and still he finds nothing. Cursing, he turns to fumble with the light on his bedside table, unwilling to go back to sleep until he can properly assess the situation. Once he feels alone again, he will be able to sleep.

The switch for the light _clicks_ under his fingers, and yet the light does not turn on. He tries it again, and again, and still -- nothing.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he grumbles, deciding that he might as well get up to try the overhead. And yet, when he goes to sit up, to toss his blankets off and slide off the bed, he finds himself stuck.

When Hux turns his head, hesitantly, to see what is preventing him from moving, he sees a dark figure over him. Hands are on his shoulders holding him down, knees bracketing his thighs. Any struggling helps absolutely none -- he is stuck, held firm. Hux blinks, trying to focus in the darkness and ignore the jackhammer of his heart in his chest. Eventually, his brain catches up with his body, and his eyes focus on the now human face staring down at his own.

 _Kylo Ren_.

Of course it’s him -- who _else_ would it be? To be fair, Hux isn’t willing to trust the assumption. It would be just his luck that he’d act as a ‘beacon’ for any number of paranormal creatures, Kylo Ren only being the most annoying of the lot.

“What the fuck,” Hux spits, voice low and sleep-raspy. He still can’t move -- even with Kylo’s face apparent to him, the other man is still holding him firm. “I was _sleeping_.” As the most important afterthought Hux has ever had, he adds, “Let me go this instant.”

Kylo laughs, but this time the sound is low and gentle. Affectionate. It throws Hux off balance.

“Hux,” Kylo says. There’s too much emotion in his voice; it’s too raw. Hux can’t put his finger on what exact emotion it could be, just knows that it makes him shiver. It sounds too close, like Kylo has known him for so long -- and well, he probably has. He’s been aware of Hux since Hux moved in, and while Hux was aware of _something_ , they certainly aren’t on a level playing field in terms of mutual knowledge of each other. It’s dizzying, having Kylo look at him like this, like he _knows_ Hux.

Hux wants to shove at Kylo, to push him off and demand he leave again. Hell, Kylo might even listen -- he seems to, most of the time anyway. If Hux told him to stop, he probably would.

But he doesn’t say anything.

There’s something about the way that Kylo is looking down at him, with a mix of adoration and hunger, that is tremendously appealing. It’s intoxicating -- no one has ever looked at Hux like that before, like he alone is the spark of light in a room. There’s potential there, the alluring glint of possibility.

So, when Kylo leans in to catch Hux’s lips in a kiss, Hux doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t think too much about it either. He doesn’t dwell on the fact that he is kissing human lips, suddenly warm just like his own. He doesn’t consider the rows of teeth he knows are there. When his own tongue darts out to flick against Kylo’s, he encounters nothing strange, nothing unusual, beside the way that Kylo tastes like nothing and everything, all at once. He tastes like the darkness, like power and strength, and Hux eats it up.

Hux blames the fatigue, blames the way his head is still foggy with sleep. He fists his fingers in Kylo’s shirt and tugs him down until their bodies are flush together. Kylo is warm above him, so warm and blazing that Hux can barely contain the full body shiver that washes over him like a tidal wave, pulling him under.

Kylo’s lips move to Hux’s jaw, to his neck, licking and biting and sucking his affections along the way. Hux tries to pull him back for a kiss, grasping at dark hair that becomes shadows in his fists, but Kylo is not distracted. He seems resolute in his quest to taste every inch of Hux’s skin, to leave kisses that feel like brands, bites that feel like claims. Kylo pays particular attention to the mark on Hux’s arm, and Hux is surprised to find it sensitive, to find those particular ministrations as pleasurable as he does.

With meticulous care and surprising gentleness, Kylo strips Hux of his clothes. He does not rip or tear, but he unclothes Hux efficiently, tossing his pajamas to the side, eager to get at every new patch of pale skin uncovered.

When Hux looks down, fingers still threaded in that darkness, he’s hit with the dizzy image of Kylo lovingly licking and kissing his abs -- that beautiful human face vying for a place in Hux’s head alongside the monster’s. It should be terrifying, but it is so absolutely unreal that for a moment Hux thinks he must be dreaming again. His world tilts and shifts, and he comes up gasping. It’s easy to lose himself in Kylo’s tongue -- it seems too long, too hot, too slick. Kylo murmurs soft words against pale expanses of skin, words Hux cannot understand, words lost to time and language.

“Kylo,” Hux pleads, unsure exactly what he is asking for, other than _more_.

Kylo says nothing, but drags too-large hands down Hux’s thighs in a comforting gesture. It shouldn’t be so soothing, but Hux feels himself relax anyway, appeased. Kylo doesn’t speak, but the words _I’ve got you_ ring in Hux’s head, the echo of a soft whisper on repeat.

Bites and kisses cascade down his thighs, the teasing enough to make him squirm underneath his captor. When Kylo moves him, arranges Hux the way he wishes, the movement is gentle and swift. Kylo, with his outrageous strength, lifts Hux’s legs over his shoulders, hoisting Hux nearly off the bed. Vividly, Hux remembers his not-quite-dream from the other night, that hot and searching mouth over him. It’s the same, not as if he had any doubts. Kylo is practiced, familiar with Hux’s body -- a fact that should be more alarming than it is.

A hot mouth ghosts over the length of his cock, tongue licking down the length. Hux’s breath hitches, anticipating -- but that is not where Kylo directs his attentions this time. Instead, he moves lower, tongue lapping over Hux’s balls, paying each adoring attention until he keeps exploring. Hux squirms, closed eyes now open wide when Kylo bites at the tender flesh of his inner thigh. “ _Kylo_ ,” he hisses in warning, hands moving to yank at the monster’s smoke tendril hair. He tries to pull him, urge him away, but Kylo is having none of it. Instead, Hux hears him shush and laugh.

 _Relax --_ the words drifts through the air, over Hux’s skin. _Enjoy yourself_.

Before Hux can respond, Kylos breath is hot and wet over him. Kylo is not at all tentative when he drags his tongue down Hux’s crack and over his asshole: arguably the most private, most intimate place Hux can think of. It is truly _depraved_ , the entire situation. It’s deplorable and sinful and _dirty --_ and it’s the most turned on Hux has ever been in his entire life. He feels it hit him like a freight train, the absolute need for more.

His back arches off the bed, his body bucking against the air for friction. But Kylo is agonizingly slow, gentle. He takes his time, like the true monster he is, not giving into the plaintive whines Hux cannot quiet before they are torn from his throat. That infernal tongue explores him, slowly tracing over Hux’s hole like Hux is only a piece of meat to be savored, a delicacy. Briefly, Hux considers that he might be.

It’s enough to drive a man insane.

“God damn it, Kylo.” Hux’s voice is more of a whine than he’d like it to be, louder and more pleading than he’d ever admit to in the morning. He’s stuck between wanting more and wanting to pull Kylo Ren off of him, demand that he leave so that Hux can now take care of his aching problem himself in a far more sane way.

Kylo chuckles against him, the warm sound resonating straight to Hux’s bones, heating him from the inside. When he looks down at Kylo again and tries to ignore his own pale thighs spread over broad shoulders, he’s struck with the reality of the situation. There is no pretending Kylo is a human when Hux can barely focus on the man. As if sensing eyes on him, Kylo lifts his head to meet Hux’s gaze. He grins -- too many teeth, and runs that shameless tongue over his lips -- it’s too long, too dark, and Hux cannot suppress the shiver that winds down his spine. There is a beautiful man staring at him, kissing the tender inside of his thigh, and Hux can see the monster veiled thinly underneath.

It knocks him off balance, seeing a beast with too many teeth press loving kisses to his thigh, to his cock and to his balls. It’s wrong. It’s impossible. It’s hotter than anything Hux has ever imagined before.

“ _Kylo_ ,” he pleads -- and the monster finally relents.

He hitches Hux’s legs up again and wastes no time in kissing and biting his way back to Hux’s ass. This time, Hux arches his back to give Kylo more access instead of squirming away. Strong hands grip his ass, spreading the cheeks before Kylo’s tongue finds him again. Kylo only licks him once with the flat of his tongue before giving Hux what he needs: the wet, hot muscle slowly licking inside him. He’s never taken part in this particular act. It’s unlike anything Hux has ever felt before, the easy exploration of a place so sensitive, so teeming with nerves.

Hux feels his cock dripping onto his stomach, hard and beading with precome, but he cannot bear to look. Every time he cracks his eyes his head swims with impossibilities, his pale skin so stark against the darkness, a beast holding him in clawed and shadowed hands. He closes his eyes and loses himself to the pleasure, instead.

Kylo thrusts his tongue in, devouring Hux from inside. It’s so delightfully slick, and all Hux can focus on is how vulgar it is, how hot it turns his insides. It’s good -- better than he could have imagined. Kylo’s tongue laps and swirls inside him: not enough, never enough. So Hux demands _more_ , reaching down to pull at Kylo’s hair again, to tug him closer. Kylo laughs, and Hux can feel the noise reverberate in his own ribs.

 _Greedy_ , the word swims in his head, and claws drag against the supple, tender skin of his ass.

For a moment, Hux is concerned that Kylo intends to press one of those dangerous digits inside him, but the fear is never fulfilled. Instead, Kylo slowly licks deeper. Impossibly deeper.

“ _Oh, god --”_ Hux groans into the quiet of the room, only imagining the muscle filling him now, trying to picture it -- for how deep it feels, it’s nothing like a human tongue.

It should be terrifying, to be filled with something so alien; instead, it is is exhilarating. Kylo fills him, deep and wide, more than Hux had ever been expecting when Kylo had begun lapping at him with a soft, pink tongue. The tongue that explores him now is slicker, wetter. There is more texture to it, what feels like more ridges and creases. The way it slides along inside him is absolutely filthy, depraved.

Without his permission, Hux’s body rocks back against the thick intrusion, blood feeling like it is burning up in his veins. With Kylo’s spit dripping from his ass, he feels like he is obscenely leaking in every way. He is lost and adrift without any sort of anchor except for Kylo’s hot breath against his skin and those strong fingers grasping at his flesh.

Time floats and Hux lets himself fall into the sensations. For once, he lets himself enjoy something without questioning it, without dwelling.

The pleasure builds, sparking each and every time that impossible tongue thrusts expertly inside him, dragging against places that make him shiver and shake. It’s so much, too much, especially when Kylo focuses his attention on that particular bundle of nerves, unrelenting until Hux’s cock is drooling onto his stomach, until he is crying out for mercy.

For a moment, Hux thinks that he may go insane from need. He could get lost in this torture forever. The world has dropped off around him -- he cannot even fist his fingers on the sheets on his bed. Instead, he has to hold on to Kylo’s hair for an anchor, has to focus all his attention on the monster.

It’s maddening.

Kylo’s tongue swirls inside him, twisting gently, undulating and stuffing him full in a way that a cock never has, never could. It is entirely foreign -- _impossible_ \-- and far too much when Hux is so close, so near to the edge.

“ _Kylo, please_ \--,” he begs. He can hear the words echoing around them, colliding with his skin, getting lost in the cacophony of moans that can only be coming from him. He feels so loud, so uncontrolled, with the way Kylo is pulling sounds from him. And yet, the embarrassment only fuels the heat inside him.

For a few long moments, Kylo traitorously slows his pace to an almost grinding halt. That too-long tongue twists and writhes slowly inside him, devouring him breath by breath. Hux can feel every ridge as it slides against him. It’s all Hux can do to not howl in frustration. He wants to cry out -- instead he hooks a leg around Kylo’s head to pull him closer, to urge him on. Hux demands it in panted pleas that echo into the darkness.

It is when Hux thinks that he may perish like this, lost in overwhelmingly frustrating pleasure, that Kylo finally gives in.

The tongue draws out to tease at his rim, easy and slow, before plunging back in, filling him completely. Kylo’s tongue begins to thrust into him in a punishing rhythm, deep and wet and vicious. The pace, the ferociousness, is just what Hux had desired. The monster frees one hand to palm at Hux’s cock and that one sweet bit of friction is all that Hux needs for his pleasure to be pushed over the edge.

He gasps, nerves catching aflame as the orgasm hits him. He feels come splatter his chest, his chin, just as he feels his hole clench and sputter around the wet intrusion of muscle still inside. It’s so _much_. Kylo’s tongue slows, but does not yield: continuing its exploration until Hux is shivering with oversensitivity and crying out.

Hux pulls and yanks at Kylo’s smokey hair until he ceases. He gets a good grip and tugs until Kylo releases him completely and straddles Hux once more, staring down at him with that too-human face again. It’s a ruse, Hux knows, but he has to look at the side to double check. He gets a glimpse of the monster before Kylo slides into his vision once again.

“You’re beautiful,” Kylo says with the utmost sincerity. His face is open and wide, and he looks so terribly serious, so dreadfully fond. It’s so much, especially while Hux’s head is still spinning, still fuzzy with release. He’s filthy and tired, and Kylo is always too much.

So Hux laughs. He laughs and laughs, easy and more relaxed than he’s felt in months.  The faintest feeling of fondness is in his chest, alongside fatigue and annoyance and surprise. When he finally stops, Hux presses a hand to Kylo’s shoulder, lightly urging him off. “You ridiculous creature,” he says, turning to his side when Kylo moves. “Let me sleep.”

There is quiet, for a moment. When Hux looks back at Kylo, he’s simply sitting on the side of bed, staring at Hux with wide eyes -- and that simply will not do. He will not be watched as he tries to sleep. “For the love of --” Hux sighs, rolling his eyes. “Go to sleep, Kylo.” He pats the bed next to him, feeling silly as he does so. He hasn’t shared his bed in years. “Or at least pretend to, for a few hours.”

Hux closes his eyes before he can watch Kylo react. It’s easier that way. After a beat, he feels the bed dip next to him, hears the shuffle of blankets. He tries not to think about the monster lying next to him, tries not to dwell on what any of this means. That is a dilemma for the morning.

“You forgot to thank me.” Kylo’s voice is a familiar composition of bells in the dark, soothing and discordant all at once. “Again.” He sounds like he is laughing. It’s a pleasant sound, the way it caresses Hux’s jaw and drifts down his neck.

“Mm,” Hux hums. “I must have forgotten.” He feels Kylo brush his hair from his forehead as the darkness tenderly pulls him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter:  
> • dubcon: kylo persuades hux into a sexual encounter where he gives hux a rimjob  
> • body horror: monster appendages/kylo's tongue resembles a tentacle


	8. Chapter 8

“Millicent?”

Hux storms up his stairs, searches the top floor of his house a third time, then descends the stairs again. His heart is pounding. Normally, Millicent doesn’t go missing for longer than a few minutes -- Hux hasn’t seen her in  _ hours _ . Since the previous night. He skips the main floor and thunders down to the basement, expecting find it pitch black, a miserable pit of void. Instead, it is bright and cheery, light streaming in from the small storm window. While it is as eerily quiet as usual and somehow also perfectly normal, it is also lacking any sign of Millicent. The cat doesn’t venture into the basement much, so there’s barely even a hair of hers to be found.

“ _ Millie?!”  _ Hux tries anyway, poking his head into the storage area where he had originally came face to face with the void, so to speak. 

\-- Nothing. 

He cannot help but think she got stuck somewhere -- in a closet, in the ductwork, behind a bookcase. His mind whirls through worst-case-scenarios at a dizzying speed. He leaves the mildew-smelling basement and returns to the main level, opening up closets and cupboards alike, just in case Millicent happened to pry one open and it shut on her by mistake. 

He feels ridiculous, but he cannot stop himself from catastrophizing. With all that has happened in his house, he doesn’t know where it will end. Sure, he had seen Kylo attempting to befriend Millicent previously, had seen her begrudgingly accept him, but that doesn’t mean that she couldn’t get caught in in the crossfire of Kylo’s attempts at getting Hux’s attention. 

When Hux had awoken in the morning, Kylo had been gone. The bed had been vacant and empty, though strangely Hux hadn’t felt offended. He had simply felt well rested and relaxed in the quiet of his house -- that is, until he had realized he hadn’t seen Millicent all morning. When she didn’t show up for breakfast, meowing plaintively for her food like she was starving, that’s when Hux had begun to truly fret.

He is halfway through moving a bookcase in the living room when he stops, something catching the corner of his eye out the back window. 

There, at his little patio table in his garden, sits Kylo Ren. With a steaming mug and a book.

It’s almost ridiculous enough for Hux to forget what he was worrying about entirely. Kylo looks so  _ normal _ . He looks like a fixture of Hux’s life, familiar at the table in a way that is entirely unexpected. For a brief, discombobulating moment, it feels like Kylo has been a part of Hux’s life, like this, for ages. Hux has to shake his head, clear his thoughts, and remind himself that while the monster has been a part of his life for months, Kylo Ren has certainly not. 

Hux shrugs on a jacket to abate the nip of cool autumn air, and lets himself out the back door. Crisp leaves curl around him in lazy currents of air, colorful in their death. When the door slides, Kylo looks up from his book and regards Hux with a crooked smile. He looks so content, so comfortable. Looking at him like this, it’s hard to remember that if Hux looks just slightly to the side, all he will see is a monster. For once, he doesn’t. Hux simply regards Kylo for a moment before sliding the door closed behind him.

“Are you done running around?” Kylo says, before Hux can greet him or scold him for stealing a book. He assumes it’s his book, anyway. It’s not like there are many books in the void, right?

Hux scowls, remembering his fear, his anxiety. “I’m looking for --” He stops. Something brushes up against his leg. Hux looks down as a ball of familiar orange fluff curls around his legs, showering him with warmth and affection. “What -- Millie, how did you --?” Despite his disbelief, the pit of uncertainty in his stomach unravels.

Still, he looks up at Kylo, eyes blurring slightly before they focus back in on the man. “You,” he accuses. “You let her outside.” It’s not a difficult logical jump to make, and the second Hux says it, it feels true. He knows it is. The next jump is easy, too -- only a matter of connecting the dots. “You’ve  _ been  _ letting her go outside!” All these weeks, these months -- all the time Hux spent looking for some hole in his foundation, only to realize that it was Kylo all along. 

He never would have gotten stuck in the basement, never would have seen Kylo for the first real time, had it not been for his quest to figure out how Millicent was getting out. It seems -- a little too random to be a set-up -- but a little too complex to be something coincidental. 

“She likes going outside, Hux.” Kylo says with a smile and a glance at Millicent.

Hux sputters. He’s never particularly been a man who loses his words easily, but now -- he simply cannot find them. He wants to lash out in frustration, wants to grab Kylo by the neck and squeeze, wants to tackle him to the ground and throttle him until Hux sees what color he bleeds. But he doesn’t. The frustration and betrayal is there, boiling inside him, but he refuses to let it control him. He will not be like Kylo, who seems entirely ruled by the folly of his own emotions. 

“Does she.” Hux says from between clenched teeth. It’s not a question and from the look on Kylo’s face, he knows it. Hux hopes he can feel his anger, too, hopes it taints the air around him like bitter poison.

Kylo hums something in response and the sound rings in Hux’s ear for too long -- neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but very annoying regardless. Hux leans down to pick Millicent up, careful to keep Kylo in the corner of his eye. He had mentioned that it felt strange, so Hux vows to make Kylo’s morning jaunt into reality an unpleasant one. “I was looking for her for  _ hours _ , you know.”

“You should have checked outside, first.”

Hux groans in frustration. He’s still annoyed, even though he feels immediately better after holding Millicent in his arms. He’s glad she’s not hurt -- but dealing with Kylo is an exercise in patience. He’s beginning to comprehend the true depth of that statement. 

“Don’t go outside with him,” he tells her, pressing lips to the top of her velvety head. “He is terrible.”

“I’m not,” Kylo says in a huff. When Hux looks at him, which he shouldn’t do, Kylo is slouched in the chair with his arms crossed, looking like a forsaken toddler. It’s truly embarrassing to watch him toy with a tantrum like this, like a child. Hux tries not to let himself stare too long at Kylo’s pouting lip, at those dark, expressive eyes. He is a beast made of void and unbridled, turbulent emotions -- he is not something that Hux should make a habit of staring at.

“You truly are.” Hux says, stepping back inside his home. 

He shuts the door behind him and sets Millicent down on the ground. He cannot scold her again because he knows this is not truly her fault, but Kylo’s.  _ Everything _ is Kylo’s fault. 

It’s also somehow Kylo’s fault that Hux ends up back on his patio with a steaming cup of coffee and his iPad, checking the morning news in something akin to companionable silence. He watches a monster drink tea out of the corner of his eye, watches as the void, with its too many teeth, quietly reads a book. It’s fascinating and terrible and ridiculous, all at once. Hux wonders what a neighbor might see, if they were to peer over the garden fence. They are so close to other houses, other people, that it seems like an impossibility that this space is sacred in its solitude -- and yet they are uninterrupted. When Hux focuses on it, he can still hear the sounds of the world continuing on around them -- but if he’s not focusing on it, the world is entirely and eerily silent. His back garden is an oasis, shared between Kylo and himself.

It is strange, but not  _ entirely _ unwelcome. It’s just the company that Hux might change, if given the chance.

Though, the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that it’s not entirely true. Other than casual acquaintances through work, Hux doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t keep in contact with his relatives. He doesn’t have a significant other -- hasn’t had one for quite some time. There is nothing tying Hux to his life, no important strings of interpersonal contact. Generally, he doesn’t  _ like _ people. The second he gets to know anyone for longer than a few minutes, he generally dislikes them. They grate. They disgust. They repel.

Kylo -- well, Kylo is annoying. He is endlessly frustrating. 

But he is also intriguing. 

First off, he isn’t human. That, right there, is enough to make him fascinating. Hux can, at least slightly, write off his annoyance simply because Kylo isn’t human and therefore isn’t condemned to behave like a one for the rest of his days. He has different standards. Of course, Hux would  _ like  _ him to behave in certain respects, if he is meant to keep company with this beast. And, given Kylo’s actions, it seems as if Hux is. If Hux is doomed to have to this, Kylo is damn well expected to behave in his presence. Hux will simply put up with nothing else. 

Secondly, Kylo is immensely powerful. Now, Hux doesn’t have one goddamn clue about what Kylo is, or how much power he wields in the grand scheme of things -- but compared to a human, he is overflowing with potential. It’s invigorating. Intoxicating. He wants to know more about it and is simultaneously intimidated by the possibilities of possible answers.

Thirdly -- well. Ignoring the fact that Kylo Ren is a monster who only has a corporeal form because he so apparently chooses to have one -- Hux finds him attractive. It’s a rare thing, that, and Hux is not willing to let it go to waste. It is an incredibly self serving point, but Hux has never pretended to be something other than self-serving, when it all comes down to it.

The garden is still and silent around them when Hux finally speaks, cracking the lull like glass. “What are you reading?”

Kylo holds out what he’s reading, showing Hux the cover of a worn paperback. The edges are creased and loved and it looks like the glue holding it together is ancient enough to be flaking off in large patches. It looks old, so old. It’s got to be held together at this point by hope and a prayer. “ _ Something Wicked This Way Comes _ ,” Hux reads, wrinkling his nose. “God, you are a cliche, aren’t you.” It’s not even surprising, really. Honestly, he’s surprised it’s not Lovecraft.

“I like Bradbury,” Kylo says. 

“Oh really. Not just  _ Something Wicked? _ ”

Kylo at least has the dignity to look offended by the dig that he’s perhaps in it just for the aesthetic. And yet -- somewhat hopeful, as he says, “Have you read  _ All Summer in a Day? _ ” There’s something about the way he says it, a subtle change in his voice. The sheer reverence with which he holds that story, it seems, is excruciatingly heavy. It’s surprising. 

The look on Kylo’s face, that  _ love _ for something as simple as a short story (a story which Hux honestly found quite depressing) -- it’s, well, _endearing_. 

It’s also oddly familiar. It’s the way that Kylo looks at Hux: in awe, reverent, devoted. With a heavy gaze from hundreds of eyes, all on him at once.

“I have,” Hux says. He cannot deny that it’s a good story. It’s crushing, honestly, in a beautiful sort of way -- but crushing nonetheless. The sort of thing you want to forget about after reading, but also commit entirely to memory. “I wasn’t aware that you read.”

“Of course I read. What, did you think I was uncultured?”

“You are a  _ monster _ ,” Hux says, like it’s the only point he needs to make. Truthfully, it is. 

Kylo frowns and sets the book down on the table. “I get bored. So, I read.”

“I can see how the endless nothingness might get boring.”

Kylo hums, though Hux can’t tell if it’s in either agreement or disagreement. “It gets lonely.”

“Good.” Hux says. Kylo hasn’t left him alone, truly alone, since Hux moved into this god forsaken house. He deserves every ounce of loneliness. 

Silence builds for a long moment. There is no wind, no rustling in the trees, no gentle song of birds in the background. It’s deafening, the quiet. Oppressive. It makes the weight of Kylo’s gaze even heavier. Hux can practically taste it, like ash on his tongue.

“It’s not always endless nothingness,” Kylo says, his voice quiet and contemplative. Then, he smiles. “I could show you, If you’d like.”

Hux remembers the basement, remembers the eternal darkness, the infinite space. He remembers laughter in the dark and hundreds of gleaming teeth, all catching light that wasn’t there, all figments of his imagination. He remembers the dizziness, the overwhelming feeling of being  _ lost _ without a tether, feeling helpless and alone. He remembers Kylo’s hand on his arm, like a brand -- reminding him that there was a monster alone in the darkness alongside him, watching and waiting from the shadows. He is lost in the thought for long enough that gooseflesh sweeps over his skin, over his arms and then, cold, down the back of his neck.

“Absolutely not.” Hux says, and that’s final.

\--

When Hux finally meanders inside to get some work done, he realizes just how late in the day it is. Dusk is already peaking over treeline when he looks out the front windows and Millicent is already starting her hungry afternoon-prowling. Hux had left Kylo outside to read, with his empty mug, but when he hazards a glance out the back to see just how dark it’s gotten, the man is gone. So is his book, as well as his mug.

The mug, Hux notices a few moments later, is sitting in the sink. No sign of Kylo. He cannot help but roll his eyes, refusing to wash it and put it away -- Kylo can do his own dishes. Monster or not. Tenuous grasp on reality, or not.

Still, the infringing darkness irritates him. It nips at his consciousness, tugs at his fears. For about twenty minutes, Hux is unwilling to give into paranoia. He desperately wants to look at the time, just to reassure himself that he simply  _ lost _ time opposed to the idea that the darkness is encroaching from the void, or however the hell Kylo manages to steal away the light from Hux’s daily life. And that’s telling, in and of itself, that Hux would prefer to have simply lost the time than anything else. Never before has he hoped that his own mind was messing with him, so often, so frequently, than this year, with Kylo Ren haunting him. 

It’s still a foreign feeling, wishing for something akin to insanity opposed to the unraveling of reality itself -- but he still feels it fair.

So, he mills around the house. He tidies. He cleans. He gives himself twenty whole minutes before looking at the clock on his phone. 

When he finally does, Hux breathes a sigh of relief. 

It truly is afternoon. In fact, it is very nearly evening. 

The sun is setting on schedule, his house darkening in the normal fashion. He notices that he has a couple missed calls from his office, but he pockets the phone anyway. It’s apparently already late enough that no one will be around to call back. And, since, he hadn’t heard his phone buzz to begin with, they clearly hadn’t tried to call him repeatedly -- it must not be important. It's the middle of the week -- he can call them back tomorrow. Regardless, the realization about the time is a buoying one, and he cannot help but feel energized and safe from the void.

When Hux moves back into the kitchen to peruse his options for dinner, Kylo Ren is sitting on the counter. 

The sight of him, looking comfortable and at home, is startlingly domestic instead of shocking. It somehow looks like belongs here, in Hux’s cozy kitchen, in his torn and well-loved clothes. Never before would Hux have imagined something like that for himself -- but now, with the prospect staring at him in the face, it doesn’t seem so farfetched. 

“Why don’t you make yourself useful, at least?” Hux snarls, upset at his own thoughts, his own acceptance of Kylo Ren in his life. Kylo smirks, likely already knowing how Hux feels -- however it is that he manages to do that, short of reading Hux’s mind, apparently.

“What, you want me to help you cook? Are you going to feed me, too?” Kylo sounds both amused and delighted.

Hux scowls, eyebrow furrowing. He does know better, he truly does. His parents always told him to never feed wild animals, that if he did, they might return. Grow dependent. But, despite Hux’s best efforts, it appears that is already stuck with Kylo. Through no fault of his own, just bad luck. 

“You can feed Millicent,” Hux says. Kylo offers no complaint and asks for no directions. To Hux, that means that Kylo has watched him do it before, spying on him from the shadows. The thought pulls a shiver down his spine, but he cannot bring himself to summon anger at the intrusion. It’s becoming so commonplace, being watched, that he cannot bring himself to care enough to become truly outraged.

In some way, it’s flattering. But he doesn’t dwell on that thought, either.

Hux thaws two salmon filets and concocts a glaze from honey, lime, and soy sauce. He prepares some rice and vegetables while Kylo watches from the doorway to the basement, banished from sitting on valuable counter-space and also from hovering. Hux can see him out of the corner of his eye -- a too-dark, too-large shape lingering in the peripheral. Even that is becoming an ordinary part of Hux’s life.

Eventually, Hux sets two plates down on the table, as well as two sets of cutlery. He pours two glasses of wine in his nicest crystal stemware and sets them down next to the steaming plates of fish and rice. Hux sits, and then looks expectantly back at the entryway to the kitchen, where the shadows are too dark, too long, too infuriatingly hesitant.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Hux says. 

Kylo appears, a perfectly normal human leaning against the frame of the doorway, balancing where there used to be a door but there is no longer. It’s a good place to rest, the liminal space between rooms. It suits Kylo, to have him existing in the fringes of Hux’s life -- between rooms, between realities. For a moment, Hux debates letting him stand there, eating until the other portion became cold while being watched with heavy eyes. But Hux made two meals and he’s not about to admit defeat and eat alone. 

“For Christ’s sake, this one is for you. Sit, before you make even more of a fool of yourself.”

Hux takes a sip of his wine and when he refocuses, Kylo is sitting across from him at the table, doubtful and unsure. “I will throw it away if you don’t say  _ thank you _ ,” Hux says, because he cannot stand Kylo Ren looking anything close to  _ shy _ . 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now: eat.” It is a command they are both willing to listen to, tucking in before the fish gets cold. Hux’s stomach occasionally does an unpleasant roll when he catches Kylo out of the corner of his eye -- too many teeth, too many predatory mouths smiling and grinning at him all at once while one continues eating. It’s an instinctual reaction, but the sight is not entirely grotesque. Still, despite the occasional waves of unease, Hux enjoys and finishes his dinner. He lets the wine warm him from the inside, pouring both of them more when they drain their glasses. 

They talk, occasionally, but the long lulls between the words are neither awkward nor stilted. Kylo is unlike any company Hux has kept before. He is remarkably pleasant to be around, even in his silence. Hux is still getting used to him -- but to some extent (and to some truth), he feels as if he has been living with Kylo for so long that he is simply comfortable around him, used to him. Kylo, of course, perpetually acts as if he knows Hux. He watches him with abject familiarity, with both adoration and awe in his eyes. Awe, Hux supposes, that Hux even lets him get this close. He recognizes the feeling, sees it in himself, too. He knows better to raise his glass to Kylo’s, to make him food and offer him a spot at his table -- much less a space in his bed. It’s a terrible idea, he knows.

But apparently  _ knowing better _ is not enough to deter Hux.

Not in the slightest.

\--

After dinner, they move to the couch, where Kylo settles down next to Hux. They finish the wine and Hux makes a pot of tea. Shockingly, Kylo offered to make a pot himself, producing a bag of extremely dubious herbs from his pocket -- likely never in his pocket to begin with, simply in the void itself. Hux is still not entirely sure how it all works, but it’s a logical assumption, given that Kylo does seem to have his own belongings that he appears and disappears from practically nowhere. “They’re ancient,” Kylo says, shaking the small, cloth packet of herbs in his hand. 

“I don’t doubt it,” Hux says. He can smell the dry tea from where he sits: sweet, pungent, peppery. The only things he can seem to identify are clove and sage -- or something like them, anyway. From here, it smells a bit like incense and not necessarily anything he would want to steep and then drink, though maybe with milk and a lot of sugar. Regardless, he cannot identify them and he absolutely does not trust Kylo to feed him anything.

Instead, Hux makes a pot of Earl Grey and sweetens it with honey. Kylo drinks it down without a fuss, always greedy for anything Hux gives him.

“So, you could leave at any time, if you wished?” Hux asks, breaking through a flattering but familiar monologue of how brilliant and bright he is to Kylo.

Kylo purses his lips. “Do you want me gone?”

“Not right now, no.” It’s a surprise, even to Hux as he says it. “But specifically the house, at any time. You said, earlier, that you could leave whenever you wanted. Could you go to the grocery store? The park? Find a new place to live?” 

“I don’t really  _ live _ here.”

Hux scowls at a smug looking Kylo. He looks more man than monster with such human expressions. He is so terribly prone to emotion, Hux doesn’t know how he does it. “I’m not arguing syntax. I care about the specifics of what I asked you.” Though he will admit, it is intriguing to learn that Kylo doesn’t consider himself to live in Hux’s house. If not, where  _ does _ he live?

Kylo laughs and slouches a little on the couch. He looks so comfortable -- seems comfortable too, as he leans slightly into Hux’s space. Hux braces himself for the unpleasantness of the sensation of someone leaning on him, of taking up his personal space -- but it never comes. Kylo’s weight is satisfyingly warm without the heat behind it -- familiar and pleasant and easy. 

“I could leave. I could spend my time next door or across the world. I could scare children at the park. I could get you peaches from the grocery store, but I prefer the ones from the farmers’ market.”

As if by magic -- and perhaps it is -- there is suddenly a peach in Kylo’s hand. When he sets it carefully into Hux’s waiting hand, the fruit is fuzzy, heavy with juice, and perfectly ripe. Hux narrows his eyes, still remembering the tea from earlier. Ancient and timeless. “Have you just been carrying this around, waiting for an opportunity to give it to me? Is this even fresh?” He knows it is, but it’s not entirely what he means.

Kylo hums and the noise sends an immediate shiver down Hux’s spine. “I thought of you when I saw it. The color.” Kylo leans over and brushes a gentle finger against Hux’s bangs, then down his jaw. “So bright.” It doesn’t answer any of Hux’s questions, but it brings the faintest of blushes over his cheeks, which he can feel the heat of.

Kylo shifts closer, crowding into Hux’s space. His breath ghosts over Hux’s lips before Kylo kisses him, lightly, reveratntly. He moves from Hux’s lips to his cheeks to his neck, chasing the blush with gentle kisses. Eventually, when he seems to have had his fill, he pulls back to regard Hux with dark, glossy eyes. 

When Hux looks at Kylo, he sees the man -- but he knows the monster is right there, underneath. It doesn’t take too much effort to see it, now that Hux knows what to look for.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Kylo says. When he smiles, Hux can count the rows and rows of shiny, sharp teeth. If he wanted to, he could reach out and touch them. He knows Kylo would let him.

“Oh, that’s pretty clear.” Hux’s heart is in his throat, his face heated with a flush that the monster put there. 

\--

“I want to show you.” Kylo says, as Hux is drifting to sleep on the couch, body fatigued and eyes heavy with wine and tea. 

Hux hums, turns his head to the darkness. The comforting embrace of it.

“Please, Hux?”

“Fine,” Hux mumbles, if only so that Kylo will let him sleep. 

He does.

\--

Hux wakes in his bead, morning sun streaming onto his face. The light of the room is warm and orange, indicative of late-morning -- or later than he would normally sleep for a weekday, anyway. Millicent is snoozing right next to his head, curled up in a happy, purring ball. When Hux moves to stretch, she trills and stretches with him, resettling herself on his chest when he has stopped moving. 

“Aren’t you hungry?” He says, running a fond hand over her glossy fur. She merely yawns, leveling him with a look that means something -- he simply doesn’t know what.

The bedroom darkens for a moment, as if a storm cloud has blown in front of the sun -- and Kylo appears in his doorway. Leaning, nonchalant as usual, against the frame. “I fed her.”

The idea that Millicent deliberately sought Kylo out for food is a strange one. The surprise must show on Hux’s face -- or seep through the air like dread, because Kylo says, “She still won’t let me touch her. But she remembers that I gave her food before. See, Hux? You shouldn’t feed things -- they’ll only return to you.”

Hux huffs. “Next time I’ll put your plate on the floor, then. Make you eat like the animal you are.” It’s crude, even as he says it. It sparks a momentary thrill in him, but it’s more prudent to realize he’d already mentally planned on a  _ next time _ . That’s the more shocking part of it all. Regardless, he’s not sure which is preferable -- having decent company at the table, the satisfaction of making Kylo eat like a dog, or banishing him from meals entirely.

Unfortunately, Hux already knows that it’s not the last one. He  _ does _ enjoy Kylo’s company, whether he likes it or not. He’s grown used to it -- accustomed. It’s not even as abhorrent as he always assumes it would be. There’s something rewarding about not eating alone. 

“Don’t touch my cat.” Hux warns, punctuating the statement with a scratch behind Millie’s ear. 

“I told you, she’s smart enough to not let me.”

The words sink in for a moment, and then Hux frowns. “Are you saying I’m not smart?”

“There are different kinds of intelligence.” 

“I didn’t  _ ask _ to be touched.” Rage seeps into Hux’s veins, white hot and burning. “I didn’t have any choice in the matter. You just went ahead and --” Hux trails off, unwilling to say exactly what he wants to. He knows that Kylo knows.

“You’re not even angry I touched you,” Kylo muses. “You’re angry that I implied you weren’t smart. You’re so strange.” He sounds fond. Hux wants to strangle him -- he just might.

Hux seeths. “Don’t think I cannot destroy you.” He feels the statement loses any potency, given that Millicent is still curled up on his chest, purring like a little motor.

“I know you could. So easily.” Kylo says, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He still always lingers on the periphery before truly coming into Hux’s space. The bed dips under his weight, yielding to Kylo’s current reality. Hux’s leg falls against him. “Do you want breakfast? If you make crepes again, I can cut peaches and whip cream for the filling.”

The moment is so domestic that it throws Hux for a loop. So easily did the rage slide from him that he nearly forgets why he felt it in the first place.

“I have to work.”

“It’s Saturday,” Kylo says with a grin.

Static fills Hux’s head, loud and insistent. It cannot be Saturday. Yesterday was only Wednesday. There are still two whole days left to the week. “It’s not,” he says, the words already dry and flat on his tongue.

Kylo passes Hux his phone from the bedside table. Kylo must have set it there, plugged it in, after presumably bringing Hux upstairs when he’d fallen asleep on the couch. Indeed, when Hux presses his thumb to the home key, the day appears to be Saturday. He furrows his brow, anxiety and confusion knotting in his gut. He has thirty new emails, but no more missed calls. Maybe he’d just forgotten the day, yesterday, and the emails had come in overnight. Either way, he cannot bring himself to open the app -- he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to deal with another blow to his reality right now.

So instead, he submits to Kylo’s will. “I’ll make crepes,” it feels less like giving in than it should. The concession is easy on his tongue and it leaves him light in the shoulders. The grin it bestows on Kylo makes Hux’s stomach squirm inside his gut, heats his insides like a slow burn.

“In a minute.” Kylo says, moving to climb over Hux, bracketing him in against an ocean of soft cotton sheets.

Before Hux can even begin to make a questioning noise, Kylo’s lips are over his, licking the sound straight from of his mouth. It should be a surprise, but Hux had already seen the hunger in Kylo’s eyes from when he’d been hovering in the doorway.

Hux could fight, could push Kylo up just to see the disappointment sour his sharp features, to savor that sort of control. But instead, Hux gives in. He falls into his own desire, letting Kylo press him down into the bed so desirously he thinks that he will fall through the mattress, the floor, the soil -- perhaps even the crust of the earth or reality itself. It’s a merciless onslaught and it feels too brokenly good to just let Kylo take whatever he wants. Hux is getting too good at that, at yielding completely to Kylo’s desires. 

It would be worse, probably, if Kylo’s desires didn’t leave Hux so pleasantly stimulated and touch-drunk. Maybe then, he’d stop.

Instead, now, he submits to the monster’s will -- but he yields in his own way. Hux grabs Kylo by the hair and kisses him deeper, harder. He refuses the gentle way that Kylo had started the encounter, so tender and intimate. Hux digs his nails into Kylo’s scalp and pulls at silky hair until Kylo bites at his lip with too sharp teeth. “Better,” Hux growls and Kylo laughs while nipping kisses down Hux’s stomach to his hips. 

When Kylo takes Hux’s cock into his mouth, Hux cannot help but groan at the tight, wet warmth that engulfs him. He knows that mouth, knows that unthinkable tongue -- knows too much of what it can do. The possibilities are too exquisite to ignore. 

Kylo beings slowly, hungrily pulling low moans from Hux. His movements are still frustratingly gentle and far too reverent. Hux knows he is nothing to worship, but even his angry fists pulling at Kylo’s hair do nothing to change the pace. It’s too slow, too tame. But Kylo has no problem holding Hux’s bucking body down against the mattress with a strong hand, fingers splayed across the pale skin of Hux’s hips. 

“Kylo,  _ please _ ,” Hux groans, wanting nothing more than to desperately thrust up into the heat of Kylo’s mouth. However, when he feels that dark tongue wrap around the head of his cock, his frustration turns into sheer delight. He cannot help but lose himself in the pleasure, falling into it like an endless darkness. He hears his heartbeat pounding in his ears, hears the slow ticking of the clock on his bedside table. The sounds linger in his head, moving lethargically through his consciousness. A too-slow drone that he loses himself in. 

Kylo’s hands drag over his skin, leaving goosebumps and heat in their wake. Hux falls into the fever dream of it, drowning himself in the sensations. Kylo presses a hot kiss to the inside of his thigh and Hux says, “God, I want to fuck you,” to the darkness behind his closed eyes. Kylo bites him in response, sharp and insistent -- hard enough to bleed. He could be, Hux thinks -- could be bleeding all over the bed and he wouldn’t care. Not now, not with Kylo’s lips all over him. But when he looks, Kylo’s mouth is on his cock again, head bobbing in a continuous rhythm. There is darkness folding in around Kylo as he moves, but there is no blood on his lips -- just the shine of spit. 

“Please let me,” Hux pleads. “Next time, let me fuck you.” It’s all he wants, to be the one pressing Kylo down against the soft mattress, to be the one pulling moans from the other man. It doesn’t seem fair that Kylo takes these things from Hux and doesn’t let him return the favor. 

Kylo pulls off, replaces his lips with his fist, long, wet fingers moving deftly over Hux’s length. Slick and perfect. “Anything,” Kylo promises. “I’ll give you anything.”

_ Anything _ .

The words echoes in Hux’s head, coated with pleasure and possibilities. 

_      anything - anything - anything  _

          punctuated by the too-slow ticking of the clock

               caught between heavy heartbeats

_ Anything _ \-- Kylo’s voice flows through his bloodstream, courses down his spine -- and Hux loses himself to bliss.

\--

The crepes are sweet and filling, and soon the entire house smells of sugared peaches and lightly cooked dough. 

Kylo had, as he’d promised, prepared the peaches, even going so far as to sugar and cook them in a pan. He’d whipped heavy cream in a bowl while Hux prepared the crepes themselves, and had  folded the cream into the still-warm pancakes when they were done. With excruciating care, Kylo had topped each plate with the warm peaches and placed them on the table.

The preparation for the meal had been spent in comfortable, sated silence. After eating, full and content and sleepy, Hux feels inclined to relax. To sit back in his chair and stretch his legs out underneath the table, resting his socked foot against Kylo’s bare one. Just touching him like this, so casually, still makes Hux uneasy -- whether it’s the fact that Kylo is a monster or the ease with which Hux finds himself falling into domesticity, he isn’t sure. Both, honestly, have his hackles rising. 

Hux watches, mesmerized, as Kylo dips his thumb into a dollop of rich cream still left on the plate. Watches as he brings it to his lips and licks, thick tongue curling over his finger. 

“We should clean up,” Hux says, red faced and warm. Suddenly and overwhelmingly, he can sit at the table no longer. He gets up before Kylo can react, clattering plates together in his haste to retreat to the sanctuary of the kitchen. In that moment, full of food and the easy pressure of physical fatigue, everything had felt so overwhelmingly real. Tangible. 

Sometimes, it’s so easy to forget that Kylo is a monster. Other times, well -- Hux loses himself entirely.

Kylo takes the plates from him, finding Hux leaning against the counter, contemplating his own reality. He runs hot water over the sticky, sugary surfaces while Hux watches his movements, cataloguing them like some scientific discovery -- with learned detachment. Or -- he tries to do that, anyway. Instead, he watches the clumps of sugar fall from the plates and down the drain, watches as Kylo meticulously brushes the wet surfaces off with sure fingers, then with a soapy sponge. Kylo’s whole attention is on the plates, careful and strangely gentle. His fingers are nimble and steady over Hux’s expensive plateware, as if he knows just how much Hux cares for the porcelain things. Hux wonders, for a moment, if that’s what Kylo looks like when his attention is on Hux -- sole-minded and focused. There’s no real point in wondering -- he knows it is, knows that’s how Kylo looks at him.

“I’ll dry them,” Hux says, just to tear himself from his own thoughts.

Kylo hands him plates and pans and bowls and silverware -- and Hux devotes his attention to drying them with a soft hand towel.

“I’d like to show you something,” Kylo says, after Hux folds the towel back over the bar to the oven, when the yawning silence between them stretches and blankets the room. Kylo’s voice is quiet, falling gently, sound muffled like snow coats the distance between them.

Hux already knows what Kylo is asking, what is thinly veiled behind cautiously hopeful words. Hux has known this was coming, has been dreading his own answer. There is only one way to respond. He cannot keep denying this, cannot keep running from reality. 

“Alright,” Hux says, and takes Kylo’s outstretched hand. 

Hux expects a sudden, drastic change, expects the world to come tumbling down around them, dusty pieces and crumbling sediment. He expects the threads of reality to unwind instantly around them. But -- nothing happens. When Hux looks confused, eyebrow creasing in frustration, Kylo only laughs and urges him in the direction of the basement. The laughter echoes around them, beautiful and terrible, pushing Hux until he follows Kylo’s pull. It’s easy, like yielding to the force of gravity -- inevitable and effortless. 

A forgone conclusion. 

With Hux’s hand in his, Kylo leads them down the stairs to the basement, into the plunging darkness. Hux wants to ask  _ why _ , but instead he simply follows -- step after step after step, his heart hammering in his chest, in his ears. 

It takes Hux a beat too long to realize he’s taken too many steps. They should be on solid ground by now, but instead they keep descending. He keeps following, barely able to see the man in front of him as they move continuously downward. 

Each step is blind, taken in faith and muscle-memory. Hux cannot help but be glad of the solid hand wrapped around his own, even if Kylo’s fingers are too long, too inhuman. It feels familiar -- safe -- even though he is unabashedly afraid. He must admit that now, acknowledge the feeling crawling down his neck, attaching solidly to his spine. He is afraid -- for his life,  _ of _ his life. But he will not let it stop him. He will not let chaos reign, will not let reality and it’s cruel twists win.

So instead of turning back, he follows Kylo -- down, down, down -- into the endless darkness.


	9. Chapter 9

The darkness folds in around Hux like a soft blanket, like the all-encompassing feeling of wading into warm saltwater. It is buoyant and comforting, yet boundless and absolute. He knows he should feel weighted down by the press of void against him from all directions -- but instead he feels light, unfettered. Kylo’s hand tethers him to the known, keeping him from drifting out into the vast nothingness around them. Each step downward takes them closer to the space between, the liminality Hux has only ever known through

Eventually, Hux realizes that he is no longer walking down, but forward. Kylo is encouraging him along, but he is no longer leading the way, but is standing to Hux’s side. Hux can’t see him, but he can feel him there. Can sense him, even though he cannot hear his breaths or his footfalls or anything else. Kylo is simply _there_.

Hux feels strangely like if he were to drop Kylo’s hand, he’d still be able to locate him, like a compass with true north. But despite the feeling, he is not inclined to drop Kylo’s hand -- just in case.

The biggest surprise comes not of his surroundings, but of his own lack of fear. He searches for it within himself and comes up short, empty-handed. It makes him feel a little empty, a little void. There’s nothing to replace the feeling -- just the simple lack of it, which feels like a weight in and of itself.

Hux wants to talk, wants to ask Kylo what’s going on, where they are, where they’re _going_ \-- but he doesn’t. His mind will not let him break the deep silence around them.

Instead, Hux looks around.

They are surrounded by void, by endless black. But, the longer he looks, the more easily distinguishable the shades of black are -- it is not one solid color, but many different shades of darkness. They each have different tones, different feelings, different sounds. Hux cannot help but be reminded of an Ad Reinhardt painting -- all black, but full of depth and feeling all the same. Neutral and shapeless and colorless and timeless -- and somehow, all the opposite of that, too.

The more Hux looks, the more he realizes that they are not alone. The shapes shift and swirl around them, but just as how Kylo often appears darker than the void he stands in, Hux can see similar shapes against the backdrop of darkness. They are in the distance, keeping away -- but they are there all the same. A shiver runs down his spine at the thought of other beings like Kylo -- or perhaps not like Kylo at all. But Hux still cannot find a sliver of fear within his chest. Curiosity, maybe -- along with apprehension and unease -- but no fear.

He looks down to watch his feet, or where they should be, but before he can be too annoyed about his own lack of sight, his eyes catch on a faint light. In the darkness, it is nearly blinding when he looks for too long.

The shape of it is unmistakable: the handprint on his arm.

_My god_ , he curses inwardly: not only dirk Kylo mark him in Hux’s world, he marked him in his own world, in the void, for all to see.

Hux has no doubt that the light is visible for miles -- or for hours, days. Whatever measurement of distance counts here -- he cannot tell. It doesn’t even matter. There is a faint pinkish hint to the light; for once Hux can at least sort of understand what Kylo means when he says he is bright, when he is red. Hux _is_ like a beacon, a burning spark in the darkness. The mark on his arm brings it out, pulls the brightness of his insides to the surface.

When he lifts his arm to his face to inspect it closer, the mark is even brighter. Blinding in the lack of light. There are hundreds of shades of red, twists and turns of light, all shimmering in the shape of Kylo’s hand. They swim and swirl like an ocean of melody, of discord. It’s stunning. Mesmerizing. Truly terrible in all its awesome glory.

It’s the most beautiful thing Hux has ever seen.

“Hux,” Kylo’s voice pulls him from his quiet revere.

The familiar cadence of Kylo’s speech rings in Hux’s ears as he pulls his arm from his face, blinks, and then looks around. They’re standing back in his basement -- once again well-lit and boring. It’s very beige, very bland. Very -- not void.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Hux says.

Kylo hums and follows Hux up the stairs and into the kitchen. It’s a strange feeling, having Kylo at his back -- it goes against every instinct Hux has. Every instinct that every human has -- to never turn their back on a predator. He can feel the monster looming behind him, tall and close, dark and menacing. Hux tries to ignore the way the hair on the back of his neck stands on end, the way endless shivers fall down his spine and catch in the lowest vertebrae, never to leave him. When Hux glances down at his arm, the mark is normal again, just black like a too-dark tattoo. Boring, at least to what he’s grown used to, anyway.

He pokes around the kitchen, but finds nothing amiss. The clock on the oven doesn’t signify too much lost time -- and he’s not sure how long they were in the darkness. The clock suggests ten minutes, but it could have been fifteen seconds or three hours -- Hux doesn’t know anymore. Time could have stopped, restarted, and began again. Regardless, it doesn’t feel like they were in the void for too long.

The quality of light streaming in from the windows is golden, hazy in an early-morning sort of way, despite the fact that it is just after noon. It’s bright without being oppressive, dreamlike without leaving him sleepy -- he supposes that’s what he gets for spending too long in the darkness. All light gets brighter, more pleasant. At least now Hux can at least half understand why Kylo is like a moth drawn to the beauty of light. Even if that light is Hux.

Kylo collapses into the corner of the couch when Hux wanders into the living room, sprawling himself out into a comfortable position. His limbs are too long, too muscular -- but at least right now it is in a human way, an attractive way. He is no monster -- just an overgrown mess of a man taking up space on Hux’s couch.

Hux sits down next to him all the same.

“It glows,” he says, running fingertips over the mark on his arm. “In the darkness, it glows.”

“Do you like it?” Kylo asks, not for the first time.

“I don’t hate it,” Hux says. He knows what that means -- that he’s growing fond, growing attached. It _is_ beautiful in the darkness -- but it is also terrifying. “Can... _anything_ see me now?” He doesn’t quite know how to word it, how to ask the unsaid question: _Are there other things out there like you?_

“That’s not why I gave it to you.” When Hux glowers at Kylo, he follows up with a, “yes, they can see you.”

Cold fear grips Hux’s gut with icy fingers for the first time in hours. “Why would you do that? You’ve made me a _target_.” He can only imagine what he must look like to creatures who live in the darkness -- bright, divine, delicious. It’s perhaps the worst thing Kylo could do, he thinks.

But Kylo just laughs. “Please, Hux. They know better than to touch you -- you’re marked.” Kylo reaches out across the barren expanse of the couch, closing the distance between them with an easy hand. His fingers settle over the mark on Hux’s arm and the contact is warm, electrifying. “They would die if they touched you.” Kylo’s voice is laced with menace, with warning.

“Would they die instantly, or would you kill them?” Hux asks.

Predictably, Kylo doesn’t answer. Instead, he smooths his thumb along the outline of the mark. Hux watches, transfixed, as Kylo outlines the shape of his own hand. His movements are slow and methodical -- reverent, even. He doesn’t seem like the type of man, or monster, to be quite this gentle, this silent -- but it appears as if Kylo is full of surprises. He always seems to be pulling one on Hux, knocking him off his guard, throwing him for a loop.

The answer doesn’t particularly matter, anyway. It only matters that Hux is safe.

And, for once, he _feels_ safe.

He is in his own home, comfortable on his own couch. He walked through the endless void and came out the other end unharmed, no worse for the wear. He now feels like he can at least share a little something with Kylo Ren -- share in the knowledge of that endless darkness he calls home. He may not appreciate the idea that he is _marked_ in such a way, but at least he feels like he can understand it a bit better, now. Now that he saw the beauty in it, anyway.

“I don’t hate it,” Hux repeats softly, when Kylo presses the palm of his hand to the silhouette left behind from their fateful encounter in the basement. It fits perfectly.

\--

“What do you _mean_ , I’m being put on probation?” Hux clicks his mouse with more force than necessary, trying to wake his computer up while holding his cell phone in his other hand.

“No -- _no,”_ Hux says, frowning as his email comes up on the screen. “I haven’t been _slacking_ \-- no, _you_ are not listening to _me_!”

His entire inbox is full, from the top of the screen to the bottom, filled with red-alerts and **_Urgent!_ ** requests. There are days worth of unread emails. “No,” Hux mutters into the phone, feeling his eyebrows furrow into a frown, his stomach drop to the floor.

He doesn’t even hear the words his boss says -- in one ear and out the other. Something about HR. Something about unpredictability and responsibility. Something disdainful, distrustful. It makes him feel sick to the pit of his stomach. He’s always been a good employee, a solid worker.

“I’ve been sick,” Hux supplies, before he can be scolded and reprimanded anymore. He just wants it to stop. “I’m truly very sorry,” He says, hearing the hollowness in his own voice. “I could have sworn I called in, but I had a very high fever and I must have imagined it.” It feels a little like defeat, tasting the lie on his own tongue. But the truth wouldn’t do, not at all.

Hux cannot simply tell his superiors _I don’t remember missing any work. I don’t understand what is happening to the time around me. As far as I can tell, I’ve worked every day this week_ . _I’m not the one missing any time --_ you _are the one with extra time._ It’s just not a possibility. For one, it makes him sound absolutely insane. It also is clearly and blatantly incorrect, given his overflowing inbox and the many missed calls on his cellphone. There is no way that he worked every day this week -- he’s been in for one, maybe two. And the week before, he’d missed days too. The amount of his forgotten time is growing, adding up to whole days, weeks. Time dies before he can even touch it, before he can wrap his hands around it to try and hold it still.

He has been ignoring the problem for too long now, like a fool. The first time he had grown confused about time passing incorrectly, he simply assumed he’d gotten caught up in his own thoughts. The second occurrence passed remarkably similarly. Then, as it had kept happening, Hux had noticed, of course,but he had also chosen to steadfastly ignore it.

_If you hope to ignore your problems until they go away,_ his mother had told him as a child _. They will only grow too numerous to count. They will consume you, Hux_.

If only she had known how true the words had been. If only Hux had known, too. Perhaps then, he would not be in this situation.

He is normally far more responsible. Far more meticulous and composed and put together. But here he is, stammering on the phone, telling lies to get himself out of trouble. “I’m very sorry,” he repeats with a hint of anxiety that he wishes he felt. This is his job; he should be worried, but he isn’t. He just cannot bring himself to care, outside of his annoyance at the missing time itself.

But Hux already hears the concern in his manager’s voice, can already tell that they are giving into human empathy, won over by it. “Yes, no -- I’m alright now. -- Yes, it was very scary.” Hux can feel himself slipping into his work voice -- it holds far more emotion than his actual voice. He knows how to make it work for him, knows exactly when to use it.

“Thank you _so much_ for your understanding,” Hux says before he hangs up the phone, trying very hard to stop his teeth from grinding together.

That is _it_ , though. It’s the final straw.

It's too much, building for too long. It was only a matter of time before Hux simply snapped, before his patience shattered into pieces across the floor.

When he looks for Kylo in the living room, he cannot find him. He is not in the kitchen or the back garden, either. Hux doesn’t necessarily want to set foot in the basement alone, so he tries his bedroom before resorting to yelling at the shadowed corners in his house. Luckily, Kylo is there waiting for him. At least he isn’t sprawled over Hux’s bed like a Renaissance painting like he sometimes is; instead, he sits placidly by the window in a chair, lounging like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He probably doesn’t.

The orange afternoon sunlight illuminates his features, making him look warmer, more real. More tangible than usual. Too often does Kylo look harsh and angular, dark and cold with the light sliding off of him. Despite his torn clothing, which alternates from day to day but is consistently disheveled and well-loved, he looks like he set foot right out of some Romance novel: sloe-eyed and mysteriously beautiful. The darkness slopes in around him from the rest of the room. The shadows from the corners reach in to touch the darkness cast from his chair. It’s an easy reminder that Kylo is no ordinary man whom Hux has grown used to in his bedroom.

“You’re going to make me lose my job,” Hux says, by means of starting the conversation. He should be able to muster more resentment and annoyance, but he cannot find it anywhere within himself. All he feels is a quiet acceptance, taking up residence underneath his ribcage. It fills him with unwanted and unwarranted calm. He should be upset, but he simply cannot be.

“You don’t need a job.” Kylo says. While his eyes are focused somewhere outside, Hux gets the distinct impression that Kylo is looking right at him -- from every direction. Even if those dark eyes aren’t on him, Hux knows he is the center of Kylo’s attention.

“I do. I have a mortgage. I have bills. I have to eat. _Millicent_ has to eat.” Hux sits down on the corner of the bed closest to Kylo. _Too_ close to Kylo. Hux knows he should keep his distance -- but somehow he always forgets.

Kylo just shrugs. Eventually, he turns in his chair, keen eyes studying Hux. He says nothing, but the room gets darker.

Hux doesn’t feel like arguing about this, especially when he knows he can’t -- and won’t -- win. Instead, he studies the shadows of the room, watches the way they all converge onto Kylo. It looks as if there is a dark web stretched across the small space, spinning out from all directions around Kylo -- who sits in the center like a spider, waiting for it’s prey.

Hux clears his throat, dismissing the thought of being a bug trapped in Kylo’s web. He knows reality is far more complicated than that. “The shadows,” Hux starts. “Are they -- part of you? Or are they simply drawn to you? Do you control them? Or are they just -- there?”

It’s probably too many questions to ask all at once, especially when Kylo simply answers, “Yes.”

Hux clenches his teeth together, trying not to show immediate annoyance. Hard enamel slides against itself for a moment, loud enough in the quiet room that he is sure that Kylo can hear it. Not that it matters -- he doesn’t need to throw his hands in the air to make his emotions known; Kylo seems to know exactly what Hux is thinking. Sometimes, before Hux is even thinking it.

“You’re truly an enigma wrapped in a mystery,” Hux says, with malice. It’s far from a compliment, but he’s positive that Kylo will take it as one. The man -- the monster -- seems occasionally too wrapped up in himself to notice the world around him. Sarcasm, Hux has found, slides past him rather often.

“They won’t hurt you,” Kylo assures him. Hux doesn’t tell Kylo that it’s less reassuring each time he says it -- that makes him sound paranoid, afraid. “ _I_ won’t hurt you,” Kylo says, as he pushes himself out of the chair, advancing toward where Hux is sitting on the bed. He crouches down in front of Hux, making himself shorter, smaller -- giving Hux the upper hand. It’s merely a display -- Hux knows that Kylo is stronger, has far more power than him -- but he at least halfways appreciates the gesture.

At the same time, however, Hux cannot help but resent the way that Kylo treats him as something fragile, something delicate and breakable. Even now, as he tells Hux he will not hurt him, that he will keep him safe, he touches Hux like he might shatter if Kylo were to touch him too hard. It is infuriating, to be treated like glass -- especially when Hux knows that he  _is_ strong. He has lived through this nightmare, hasn't he?

_I won’t hurt you - I won’t hurt you_

The words echo in his head. There’s definitely something annoying about them, too protective, too caring. Like Hux is delicate creature in Kylo’s care, locked away -- not a living, breathing person, capable of making his own mistakes, capable of orchestrating his own doom.

The words are out before Hux can reconsider them, fueled by a vicious fury that has begun to churn in his gut.

“And what if I wanted you to hurt me?”

Kylo looks shocked -- as much as he can be surprised, anyway. To some extent, he already seems to know how Hux feels most of the time; surely he knew that this tipping point was coming.

Hux is nothing to be coddled. He will certainly not accept any of Kylo’s attempts to do so. If Hux has to, he will egg Kylo on until Kylo loses control. And, for what it’s worth, Kylo’s control seems fairly thin at the best of times -- he is certainly not a creature that _lives without_. Hux wants to know what he is working with, wants to know just what Kylo is capable of. If Kylo insists on reining himself in just for Hux’s sake, Hux can never be in control of the situation, can never truly have the upper hand.

Crouching in front of Hux, Kylo looks as if he is trying to console him, trying to make himself smaller for the sake of looking less threatening. That will not do, not right now, anyway -- Hux wants to see his claws, his teeth, his darkness. He wants, for whatever damnable reason, to be the focus of it. He wants to be the epicenter of Kylo’s attention, of his power. 

Hux snarls, because Kylo’s eyes look wide and gentle. He looks at Hux like he is bursting to the seams with affection for him, overflowing with it.  It’s disgusting -- it makes Hux’s stomach twist in unpleasant ways. “Are you even capable of that?” Hux asks, unable to stop himself, leaning forward and getting into Kylo’s face. “Or are you too weak?” He feels the darkness curl into his own belly, twist and twine through his ribs. It fuels the fire inside him, a vile and endless means of nourishment.

Kylo at least has the foresight to look surprised by the accusation. “I’m not _weak_ ,” he states with a pout, seemingly hurt that Hux might even suggest such a thing. “You know I’m not weak.”

“I don’t actually,” Hux says.

There is a low rumbling noise, gradually growing louder. It takes Hux a moment to realize it’s coming from Kylo. Hux grins.

“I could tear you apart, if I wanted to.” Kylo says, leaning closer. _Good_ , Hux thinks. When Hux looks carefully, he has far too many teeth, and they are all bared in an unfriendly, vicious snarl.

“Oh, is that why you’ve been so exceedingly _gentle_ so far? My mistake.”

There is a beat before anything happens. Hux feels Kylo calculating, feels the electricity in the air as it surges around them -- the momentary calm before the storm.

Then, Kylo strikes. He must push up from his knees, but Hux doesn’t see the movement -- he only feels strong hands on his shoulders, shoving him down onto the bed. Suddenly, Kylo is looking over him, all teeth and eyes and barely contained energy. It’s _beautiful._

“Like this?” Kylo snarls from above him, from next to him, from somewhere -- everywhere and anywhere at all. Hux feels the words in his ear, along his collarbones, down his stomach. “Is _this_ what you wanted?” It’s a warning.

Hux reaches above and goes for where Kylo’s hair is -- where it should be, anyway. All he sees is darkness. He grabs ahold of something -- feels like feathers, like fur, like dust between his fingertips. He yanks and pulls, “Something like that.” He matches the intensity of Kylo’s tone, pitch for pitch -- but instead of questioning, he is praising. A rumble passes through Hux from Kylo -- a sound like a purr, a growl, an earthquake.

Kylo fights against the grip Hux has on his hair, which only succeeds in Hux tightening his fingers and pulling harder, using the hold he has like a leash to keep Kylo tethered to him, to keep him from drifting away to the shadows. Hux feels claws dig into the back of his shoulders. First they press against flesh -- then, he feels sharp blades break the skin. There is no lightning flash of pain, just the steady building crescendo of desire. It _hurts_ , yes -- but it feels too good to be truly damaging. It feels _right_ . Kylo must be doing something to quell the pain, the bleeding -- but he doesn’t care _what_.

“You,” Hux says, pausing to gasp when Kylo grinds roughly down against him, “act too much like a lap dog.” Hux growls, though the sound is nothing up against the noises Kylo can produce. Though, he feels as if his own anger, his own desire, is just as palpable in the room as Kylo’s. “And you treat me as if I’m made of glass,” Hux spits. “When I am _not_.”

Hux is getting tired of it. Suddenly, it all feels pulled to the forefront of his consciousness. Like a dam has burst and he is suddenly flooded with these grievances. This is his life, and he is going to take control of it.

“I --” Kylo makes a noise of argument, a sullen and aborted sentence, before he snarls like a trapped animal and goes for Hux’s neck. Hux feels teeth at his throat like a vice, like hundreds of needles, like a choke-collar on a rabid mutt. The satisfaction hits him like a rush, alongside the pain of the bite. Even though Kylo doesn’t break the skin of Hux’s neck, it is still infinitely rewarding, having him ease off and then lick over his trophy like a claim. Kylo is _finally_ acting like what he is -- a monster. And he is no longer treating Hux like a delicate prize. The thrill of that is intoxicating.

“You are _idiotic_ ,” Kylo chastises against Hux’s skin. His breath feels like ice. “Insane.” He says, dragging razor sharp teeth over Hux’s jugular. He can feel the skin catch and scratch against the pointed monstrosities, pulling and tugging as Kylo moves. “Suicidal,” Kylo growls, before catching Hux in a kiss.

Before he can argue, Hux clothes are being torn from him, the shredding sound loud in the quiet of the room. He can’t bring himself to care, not when he sees Kylo looming over him like a demon -- like the monster he truly is. He looks crazed -- or he does at first glance, anyway. Darkness swirls around him, tumultuous in its glory. Kylo’s eyes -- two or six or eleven --  are red and angry, boring straight through to Hux’s soul. His teeth are all bared into animalistic snarls -- warnings.

But the longer Hux looks, the more he _sees_.

Kylo is _barely_ restrained -- but he _is_ still restrained. There is a mental tether on him, a careful cautiousness that looks an awful lot like the desire to be praised. Perhaps even a desire to be controlled. He looks like a snarling, growling attack dog -- waiting for his master’s command to tear his target apart.

A dangerous, delightful thrill shoots through Hux.

The man above him flickers in and out of his vision -- but Hux is past the point of caring. There is enough of Kylo Ren the man, the human, there for Hux to work with. Hux hauls him down for another kiss, all the while pulling at clothes that he knows are merely constructs of the void -- however that works. Soon Kylo is as naked as he is, grinding against Hux with his considerable mass. Kylo licks over Hux’s jaw, to his ear, and then down to his neck, pressing open mouth kisses and bites as he explores.

“Gentle,” Kylo laughs, placing his teeth over Hux’s collarbone and simply holding them there for a moment, clamping down. Kylo’s breath is hot -- and cold -- and everything in between. When he lets go, his tongue follows the bone back up to Hux’s neck so that Kylo can kiss him once more. “You are not a gentle man.”

Hux cannot help but laugh. “And you are not a gentle beast. Stop playing at it -- it doesn’t suit you.”

That, apparently, Kylo can do. With a bit of guidance, with a firm hand, Hux realizes he can guide Kylo in the direction that so pleases him. When Kylo bites, Hux praises him with either words or pleased sounds. When Kylo pushes him down against the mattress, grinds against him with fervor and spite, Hux praises him too.

Hux knows what is coming. Even expecting it, it’s surprising.

Feeling Kylo’s thick length grinding against his thigh is an experience -- it gets Hux’s heart racing, faster and faster and faster. It’s not just that he is thick -- it is that he is long and hard and _different_ \-- not that Hux was expecting anything less.

When Hux shoves at Kylo, to get him up and off to get a better look at the man’s equipment, he cannot help but take in a sharp breath. It looks _foreign_ , alien. His cock is certainly a cock -- but it is as black as void and dangerous looking, venomous. Hux reaches out and touches it anyway, because while it looks terrible, it also looks strangely appealing. It practically cries out for Hux to touch it, to grasp it.

When he does, when he gets his fingers around that monstrous thing, Kylo goes absolutely docile. Belly up -- literally.

The great beast flops over onto his back with a moan that vibrates throughout the entire room. Hux’s pictures shake. His clock ticks off-time. Jesus, he’s so tame, yielding to Hux like he was made to be controlled -- taken. Hux moves with him, clambering to straddle Kylo’s thighs, stroking him with one hand, then two, just so that he can get a better view of the monster’s length.

It is slick and soft in his hands, almost velvety to the touch. The head is a bit more triangular than it should be. Hux plays with it, pulling the edge of his thumb over the rim of it, and finds it to be just as sensitive as his own. Kylo’s length, all too much of it that there is, flares down from the head to an impressively thick base. Hux cannot imagine taking all of him, not with how long he is, nor how wide he is at the base -- but it is intoxicating to imagine. Once Hux gets his hands around it, is a nice slide, already slick because of course it is. There are balled ridges running down both sides of his cock, as well as over the seam underneath. Hux gently slides his fingers over the small bumps, enjoying the feeling of them underneath his fingertips.

_Fuck_ , he thinks -- there’s no ignoring how good that would feel inside of him.

Before Hux knows it, before he can think about how truly inadvisable it is, his lips are around Kylo’s cock. Kylo growls and groans and hisses, and his hips jerk off the bed in surprise. Luckily, Hux is prepared for all eventualities, and has little trouble shoving Kylo back down against the mattress with angry palms on his hips.

_Stay_ , he thinks, hopefully loud enough for Kylo to hear.

The monster practically purrs underneath him in response.

Kylo’s cock is solid in his mouth, more corporeal than Hux would have imagined, but he has no complaints. It tastes like nothing -- no, not just _nothing_ , but instead the absence of anything at all. It tastes like time and desire and shadow, too much like reverence and devotion. His tongue slides over the head, then over the ridges as he takes Kylo deeper, mapping all of the features as best as he can.

Taking Kylo into his mouth is intoxicating -- but the longer Hux draws his tongue along Kylo’s length, the more aware he becomes of his own erection. He is so hard he aches, deep down to his bones.

It’s all inadvisable, really -- but he has come this far. Through the void and the darkness and the fear. What’s one more sin, one more mistake?

Hux pulls off, panting, wiping his lips with the back of his wrist to catch the spit.

“You stopped,” Kylo groans. “Why did you stop?” As if Hux is torturing him, just by existing. He could, Hux thinks -- so easily, too. But not today, not right now.

“Shut up,” Hux says, crawling forward on his knees until he is straddling Kylo’s hips. The man looks beautiful beneath him, spread out like a torn apart work of art. It makes Hux want to tear him into pieces with his own hands. “I want you to fuck me,” Hux says. His town allows no argument.

“Fuck, yes,” Kylo groans.

Hux has not stretched himself and neither has Kylo, but he does not argue when Kylo wraps large hands around Hux’s hips and guides him toward his cock. The head of it presses against him, pushing against that sensitive and tight ring of muscle with more patience than Hux ever has given Kylo credit for.

“Careful,” Hux warns.

Despite the lack of stretching before hand, Kylo begins to slide slowly and easily into Hux. Simple, just like that. Hux gasps as it happens, almost unable to truly comprehend what is going on. There is no resistance, only willingness, acceptance. Kylo fills him within moments, pressed practically to the hilt, leaving Hux feeling more complete than he perhaps ever has.

The walls around them shake.

A light bulb shatters in the hallway.

“ _Move_ ,” Kylo pleads.

Hux does.

He does not begin slowly -- there is no need to try for the gentle, not now. Hux wants this to hurt, wants to remember the feeling of Kylo stretching him out almost impossibly. He wants to feel raw and bruised, wants the pain so that he can feel in control. Straddling Kylo like this, Hux is the one with the power, the one who can ride Kylo however fast or slow he so pleases.

His pace is a brutal one, leaving Kylo moaning and breathless beneath him. He seems startled, always so surprised by Hux’s actions. Like he never once expected Hux to be so demanding, to be so daring.

Hux enjoys the fact that he is a mystery to Kylo, just as much as Kylo is a mystery to him.

Kylo growls, digging his fingertips into the flesh of Hux’s thighs.

Hux spears himself on Kylo’s dick, grinding until he hits that perfect spot that leaves him seeing stars. He closes his eyes and loses himself in the darkness, in just the sensation of it all. The ridges on Kylo’s cock rub him in just the right way, providing just enough stimulation to have him moaning wantonly, embarrassingly.

Kylo’s thick girth at the base of his cock stretches Hux perfectly. He cannot help but grind down until he feels the pain of it stretching him wide, holding him open. It’s so much. His cock aches with the need to come, the need to feel like this forever -- stretched far and wide, through time and space.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathes into the darkness. When he opens his eyes, it is dark, still. His heart does not beat faster, nor does he fear -- but he reaches for Kylo’s hands in the void, nevertheless.

Kylo finds Hux’s hands through the nothingness, lets Hux hold onto his wrists, lets Hux press him down into the mattress. Hux follows him downward, catching Kylo’s mouth in a kiss, despite the fact that he cannot see, cannot know where his lips are -- if he even has them now, or if he has five grinning, feral mouths. But Kylo meets him halfway, licking into Hux’s mouth like a feral creature.

Hux has no idea how long they go on like that, kissing like they’re drowning while he rides Kylo like his life depends on it.

In the darkness, time is of no consequence, not when he is wrapped around Kylo like this, not with Kylo coiling tendrils of darkness around him, pressing in on Hux from all sides. After a while, he feels like they are floating, lost in the void of pleasure and intimacy. He feels connected to Kylo, feels their shadows and souls intertwine, more-so than ever before.

“Hux,” Kylo moans in his ear, pulling Hux from the place of nothingness where he had been. A voice, ringing out through the shadows.

Suddenly, the room fades back into existence around them. When the light hits his open eyes, Hux realizes that he is coming, hard and fast onto Kylo’s chest. He groans against Kylo’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around the other man’s neck as he rides out his orgasm. When Kylo clutches him tight, thrusting hard up into him, seeking his own release, Hux cannot help but lose himself in it. The pleasure, the pain, the absolute mystery that is Kylo.

When they both come down, panting hard with fingers clutching each other for stability and assurance and need, everything is back to normal again. 

\--

Hux wakes in the middle of the night, cold. It isn’t a terribly unpleasant way to wake up, especially when he rolls into a solid wall of heat only a moment later. A heavy arm drapes over him, draping a blanket of darkness over him. When he tries to blink his eyes open, he barely can. His eyelids are heavy with sleep, fighting against them is a losing battle. But Hux refuses to surrender until he can at least catch a glimpse of his room, just to assure himself that he is safe. When he finally manages to pry them open, he is greeted with the familiar lines of his room, draped in the gentle light from the streetlight outside his window.

Everything is both soft and also crisp, highlighted in gold. It looks real, Hux supposes -- even if it is too perfect, too beautiful to his tired eyes. The picture-perfect stillness of everything could be a concern, but Hux is too warm, too pleasantly exhausted to care. He can hear and feel Millicent pad into the room, jump onto the bed, and curl up in the recess of his stomach. He pulls one sleepy, heavy hand over her and smiles when he feels the purr rumbling her tiny body. For the moment, everything is perfect.

Hux presses back against the solid heat of the body next to him, folds himself into the darkness, and gives himself over to sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Hux had hoped that things would change, that they would finally settle. He knows, at this point, he and Kylo have passed some sort of hurdle. Some large and incomprehensible milestone is slowly retreating into the horizon behind them. This is a new, uncharted point in their relationship -- though Hux still hesitates to call it just that, a _relationship_ \-- and there is a sea of possibilities stretching out beyond them in every direction.

Now, it is not all so foreign. Now, Hux has accepted that this is his new reality.

His life _should_ settle down. He _should_ see some sort of normalcy as their relationship shifts into this new and evolved form.

Instead, of course, it is as if Hux has set foot into a whole new dimension of _strange_.

While Hux has gotten used to the shadows in his house behaving differently, his _own_ shadow begins behaving rather bizarrely.

Sometimes he has two shadows. Sometimes he has none. Sometimes he sees Kylo’s eyes and teeth in his own shadow as it creeps up the wall next to Hux, grinning malevolently from the absence of light. Kylo: layered upon a layer of nothing. Tall and imposing. “Stop that,” Hux says when it happens, because he doesn’t think his shadow should ever _loom_. It should never be imposing to him, when he has given it life simply by standing in the light.

Most of the time, both Kylo and Hux’s shadow heed his words.

On rare and disturbing occasions, the shadow touches him. Just a light touch, but it’s enough. It feels too strange to put words to -- or to even think about much at all.

Then, there’s everything else:

Simple physics don’t always prove to be so simple. Gravity doesn’t often work the way he thinks it should. Sometimes it tugs too hard, sometimes it leaves him feeling weightless in his sleep.

Last time Hux boiled water for tea, he listened to the impatient whistling of the kettle -- and when he went to pour it, the entire thing was frozen over and solid, only allowing a few drops to fall into the waiting teapot and its strainer. Hux set it down in disbelief, refusing to accept that kind of nonsense. When he came back to the kettle a minute later, ready for reasonable results, the steaming water flowed into the teapot just as it should have to begin with. The earl grey tasted just as it should, even though Hux had angrily steeped it until it was bitter and tannin-y.

He tries not to let the strangeness get to him, but sometimes it has him bristling or acting out like a petulant child. At this point, he’s not even embarrassed at his own emotional reaction, even though he tries to keep himself level and calm.

Often, he feels as if something is hovering just behind him, leaning over his shoulder to breathe quietly into his ear. He never turns around to look, refusing to give whatever it is -- likely Kylo -- the satisfaction of his unease.

This morning he walked past the large mirror in his bathroom, same as usual. Hux watched as his reflection followed him -- movements too choppy and lagging a few seconds behind. When he turned fully to meet his own eyes in the mirror, he was met with eyes that were not his own. The challenging, disbelieving glare was still there, on the face he knew so well -- it was just the eyes. So different, so foreign. To his credit, he didn’t startle. He knows better than that, now.

This whole mess is absolutely _insane_ \-- but Hux’s self-preservation instincts are strong. He knows how to survive in this world -- he will adapt to this new reality.

He will not only survive, but he will _thrive._

It’s just that simple.

\--

The next time Hux meets the eyes of his reflection in the mirror, he watches himself blink. It’s a strange thing, seeing your eyelids close in front of you, both eyes at a time. It helps, honestly, that when he looks into the green eyes looking back at him, he doesn’t see himself. They are so unfamiliar, in fact, that he forgets for a moment that he is even looking at himself at all.

He smiles, forcing the corners of his lips up in a tight expression. His reflection does the same, looking just as strained.

He blinks. It blinks -- a second off.

Hux narrows his eyes and then sneers, baring his teeth at the mirror in a way he thinks Kylo Ren would be proud of. His reflection jerkily does the same, movements lagging lurching like under a strobe light. It bares its teeth and runs a tongue over them when Hux does the same.

It smiles, lips curling up in an expression that should seem malevolent, but isn’t. Hux smiles back.

\--

“ _Ow_ ,” Hux says, with perhaps more vehemence than necessary. Millicent just landed his lap, claws digging into the soft flesh of his thighs. It’s not terrible, or even truly painful -- but it is rather unfortunate, as well as a poor habit for her to get into. Imagine the damage she could do to the furniture if she treated every landing in that way.

Kylo appears in the doorway, hovering as a great and hulking shadow for a moment before he smiles, face handsome and human again. Hux takes a moment to admire him, both the shadow and the person, and then looks back down at Millicent. He doesn’t want Kylo getting too cocky with Hux’s attention. When Hux looks away, Kylo disappears into the kitchen, only to reappear a few moments later with two steaming mugs of tea in his large hands. He looks unduly pleased with himself, a grin on his angular face. There are other grins too, more sets of smiling teeth, if Hux looks hard enough. “I made tea,” Kylo says.

“I can see that.”

“Don’t you want any?”

Kylo has the audacity to pout, so Hux manages a sneer. He isn’t really annoyed, or unhappy at all -- he is actually feeling rather warm and pleasant -- but keeping the status quo of their dynamic is important.

It’s integral, really, to Hux’s sanity.

There is not a point in time that Hux thinks he can ever really truly justify being anything but at-odds with his house and the creature that resides in it. Hux can accept his own changing reality, but he will always fight Kylo to some extent, tooth and claw: it just feels right. He will always stand up for himself, will always assert his own authority. That is who Hux is and there is no avoiding it.

He accepts the tea anyway because he wants the warmth and caffeine. And when Kylo Ren sits next to him, Hux suppresses a shiver at the contact and simply lets him. He is getting soft -- it is truly atrocious.

The tea isn’t bad -- it is floral and bitter, and yet somehow also tastes of nectar and smoke. It is sweetened with something saccharine but not cloying, and thickened with decadent cream. Hux thinks the tea itself probably comes from one of the sachets of dried herbs Kylo seems to fetch from nowhere at all, the ones that Hux had initially refused. Well -- he wasn’t immediately poisoned and he didn’t gag at the taste -- it’s actually quite pleasant, so he counts it as a win.

He still thinks he prefers coffee in the morning, though. Even though this isn’t a poor substitute.

“No breakfast?” Hux asks, sliding a hand over Millicent’s silky fur. “You’re getting complacent, Kylo Ren.” The tea will suffice. It is strangely filling.

They sit in idle conversation for a while, until Millicent turns and begins kneading at Hux’s belly, small claws poking through the not inexpensive material of his shirt. “Stop that,” he scolds. “Bother Kylo, why don’t you?” He seems to always have an endless supply of clothes -- Hux assumes that if one were to rip, he could simply will it back whole again, or something to that extent.

“I told you, she prefers you,” Kylo says into his teacup.

Hux narrows his eyes. “Last time, you said she didn’t _like_ you. Wouldn’t even let you touch her.” There’s just something about the words that raises Hux’s hackles, that has him more skeptical than usual.  Kylo is typically one to say what he means, even if he is somewhat cryptic about practically everything. “There’s a large difference between _prefers me_ and _dislikes you_.”

Kylo, to Hux’s unyielding pleasure, looks like he is caught in a lie. Eyes wide, lips quirked in a funny sort of expression -- like he wants to say something, but can’t quite find the words.It’s a delightful look on him. It would be more delightful if Hux wasn’t worried about his cat.

“What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t _do_ anything.” He sounds guilty. He _looks_ guilty. Anger starts licking at the inside of Hux’s ribcage.

He looks down at his cat, who is still kneading happily at his stomach. Her eyes are half closed in quiet bliss. “What did he do to you?” Hux asks. Hux knows, suddenly and without a doubt, that he is right. That Kylo is lying. Hux cannot see anything out of the ordinary, but that means nothing. He gives her a quick once over, but finds no black marks like his own, not even in her mouth. Eventually, he gives up. He can only poke and prod her for so long before her tail starts twitching in annoyance, her eyes narrowing in a decisive command to _stop_.

Hux does. He lets her relax and curl back up on his lap.

Just when he is about to admit defeat to Kylo, to perhaps even _apologize_ , he sees it.

“What the --” Hux says, eyes caught on her outstretched feet. He can see the pads of her paws, can see her tiny little outstretched nails. The pads, which should be a soft pink color like always, are an inky black. Her claws: black, too. Even the bits of hair at the bottoms of her feet are black as well -- it looks as if she walked straight through soot.

Or -- through the void.

Hux takes a moment to inspect her feet as gently as he can, trying to keep his flaring anger out of his touch. She puts up with it as he coos at her. Each foot is the same, tinged in darkness like the skin of his arm where Kylo touched him so long ago. They are both now tainted by the darkness that lives in his house. How long have they been like this, Hux thinks. How long has he just assumed the shadows on her feet were simply that, and not that she too, is marked by the void.

When Hux looks up to curse at Kylo Ren, to unleash the anger rolling in his gut, the monster is no longer next to him. He’s not even in the room. He is nowhere to be seen.

Of course he isn’t.

\--

 **_I’m sorry_ ** \-- the shadows whisper at Hux as he dozes off to sleep, trying to find relief from anger in unconsciousness and comfort in the still quiet of his room.

 ** _I’m sorry_** \-- the his reflection mouths at him, when he is brushing his teeth in the morning. It leans its forehead against the other side of the glass and stares at him with Kylo’s dark eyes.

 **_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ ** \-- a constant and unrelenting stream of words until they lose their meaning entirely, until they just become background noise buzzing in Hux’s ears.

Eventually, Hux tires of the apologies.

It’s not that he truly forgives Kylo -- to do that, he would have to both accept Kylo’s apology and also believe Kylo’s apology to be truly heartfelt. He doesn’t want to do the previous and he certainly doesn’t believe in the latter. Kylo is simply apologizing to apologize -- Hux isn’t even sure he has a heart to be weighing heavy over all this, anyway.

Kylo had wanted Millicent marked and now she was; it was as simple as that. Her little black feet are now a constant reminder that Kylo always gets his way.

Kylo cannot regret it, Hux knows that much: therefore he cannot truly be sorry. The monster is, more than likely, upset that Hux is upset -- that’s pretty par for the course. He doesn’t like having Hux angry with him, doesn’t like Hux being standoffish. Kylo Ren does not like being ignored. And Hux is happy to ignore him until his own patience wears thin, until the apologies start to grate and grind, until he feels a bit like he is going crazy all over again.

Hux logs into his work computer and answers some emails. It’s been a few days since he’s logged in, but he could have sworn the same thing happened only yesterday.

It bothers him less than it should.

It’s very nearly commonplace now.

He deletes the snippy emails about Hux being hard to contact. He forwards the emails that can be dealt with by a coordinator. He flags the ones that require more than an hour’s worth of work. And then, he busies himself with replying to and filing away everything else.

It’s only when he is done that he makes the decision to call a truce.

“If you so much as look at the pizza delivery man, I will kill you myself,” Hux says, after calling in his order. He so rarely orders pizza, but it somehow seems like the thing to do.

Pizza is very much a peace offering.

\--

“I’m sorry I’m late,” the delivery man says, when he finally rings the doorbell. He’s more of a kid than a man, honestly. All short and scrawny, with limbs too long for his frame. He looks from Hux, where he stands in his open doorway, back to his car parked poorly on the side of the road. “It...took a really long time to walk here?” He sounds confused. He looks confused.

Hux _is_ confused. “From your car to here.” He’s not necessarily angry about the length of time the delivery took -- he’s more intrigued that it _did_ take so long, given that the pizza place is barely a couple blocks away. And that? _That_ makes him angry. There are implications there, and he knows exactly who to point the finger at -- and it’s not this poor, gangly kid just working for an extra couple bucks. It’s someone with no concept of money or time or anything at all, really. Other than his own selfish desires, of course.

The kid nods. “A good five minutes?” His voice squeaks and then he takes a long breath. “It was really dark for a minute there. Honestly, I thought I might be tripping. Like -- how do you get lost when you can still see where you’re going?”

How indeed.

Hux pays the kid, taking the box with a nod and a carefully sympathetic expression. Then, Hux slips him a twenty as an apology. Because at least _he_ knows how to apologize properly.

Hux brings the pizza into the living room. He makes coffee and turns the television onto a paranormal documentary, knowing full well who will take notice. Hux helps himself to a slice of pizza and settles down in his favorite spot on the couch. He puts another piece of pizza on a plate and leaves it on the couch next to him -- an invitation.

It takes longer than he assumed it would.

An hour later, Kylo appears next to him. It takes so long that Hux isn’t even expecting him any longer. One second, he’s watching something about a haunted bathroom in Savannah, Georgia -- the next he hears the sounds of someone shifting next to him. At least he isn’t _startled_ \-- he knows better, now.

When Hux turns to look, Kylo is looking back at him. He is holding the plate with reverence, though he has yet to touch the pizza. “Hux,” he starts.

“Don’t you dare.”

“But --”

“You’re not sorry,” Hux cuts him off. Before Kylo can argue again, he continues. “I _know_ you’re not sorry, so don’t insult my intelligence by trying to apologize again.” Kylo looks dutifully chastised, but Hux isn’t quite done. “I know you’re proud of yourself. It’s practically radiating off of you. But you’re upset that I’m angry with you -- which I still _am_ , by the way. I’m furious.” Hux knows that his accent gets clipped like this, short and fiery.

He pauses for a moment, taking a sip of his coffee. He can’t pretend he doesn’t enjoy the moral high ground here, so he doesn’t bother. He enjoys the look of disappointment, of regret, on Kylo’s face, and so he lets himself enjoy it.

“I’m stuck with you, that much is clear.” It is the reality of the situation Hux has found himself in. He has accepted it. But he will not live with certain traits of Kylo’s -- he at least has that much control over his own situation. “But I will not be stuck with your petulance, nor will I be stuck with lies. You will tell the truth in all arenas.” He figures it is an unspoken thought that that includes keeping his powers from Hux, from being, god-forbid, gentle with him when it is unwarranted. And the like.

Kylo nods carefully.

“You will make sure Millicent is safe at all times. I understand your desire to let her freely roam,” and roam she can. Now, with no bonds of reality to stop her. “But you have introduced an added element of danger that she isn’t accustomed to. So, until she learns to properly take care of herself in her new surroundings, you will make she does not get lost or hurt.” Hux firmly believes that she, like himself, can take care of herself. Likely, she will even appreciate the additional space afforded to her, the freedom to roam behind the veil. But, having Kylo’s watchful eyes on her is a comfort nonetheless.

The monster nods again.

“Also, I’m not pleased about the situation with the delivery man. He didn’t deserve that.” No one deserves being dragged into the void, even if it is only on the outskirts.

“I didn’t actually _look_ at him.” Kylo says, through a mouthful of somehow steaming pizza.

Hux looks down at his own, now-cold pizza. Without a word, he hands it to Kylo and when Kylo hands it back, it’s steaming like Hux just took it out of the box.

\--

Shockingly, Kylo’s behavior improves.

It takes time -- and a considerable amount of patience on Hux’s part -- but it improves.

Kylo tells fewer lies and even fewer half-truths. He seems to finally grasp the idea that Hux is going nowhere and is not concerned with the metaphysical conundrums and philosophical acrobatics that come along with the void. Hux, for the most part, wants to know as much as possible about his new reality -- he doesn’t want to be left in the dark with nothing but a prayer and a god-forsaken handprint on his arm.

Not that Kylo can give him all that much concrete knowledge about what is happening.

But, for the most part, he tries. Even if he doesn’t understand the exact nature of what he is, where he is from, or the reality around him -- he tries. It’s almost romantic.

Hux takes many trips through the void with Kylo Ren at his side. Each time, he ends up climbing the stairs into his own kitchen again. The differences are almost completely unnoticeable. The main, most glaring difference, is that he is the only human there. He is the only thing alive, with red blood in his veins, with a beating heart inside his chest -- other than Millicent, of course, who now joins them with ease.

She roams between the two worlds at her own whim, curling up at Hux’s side or on his lap wherever they end up. She has a tendency to disappear for hours, occasionally even days. Hux knows she is safe, though. Even without Kylo Ren to tell him, somehow he simply _knows_.

Sometimes, Hux goes to sleep in his own world and wakes up in the other. In the beginning, the differences were there: it is too quiet, too still, too alone. The quality of light is pleasant, but _not quite right_. It illuminates everything it touches -- but then again, not always. And not everything. The smell in the air -- like dust and old artifacts. The walls buzz under his fingertips, thrumming along to their own lifeforce. It is all small and subtle and only there when Hux looks for it, but it is enough.

However -- soon, Hux begins not to notice at all, growing accustomed to all of the small shifts. Like the smell of a new house -- your senses forget after a while. The dust settles, the reality shifts and sways, and you are left with a new normal.

With Millicent curled happily at his side and Kylo looming into his personal space as usual, there’s no way that Hux could feel alone at all in this empty place. No way that he could notice the difference at all, really.

\--

Kylo Ren also begins to hide less and less of himself from Hux. He has never been a shy creature, but Hux has always gotten the impression that Ren was too careful with Hux’s sensibilities. He found that irksome. While he had called a stop to it, while he had urged Kylo to cease with his gentleness, it was one of the last things that Kylo seemed to want to hold on to.

Gradually, though, he has begun to change.

Of course, he is still the angular handsome man when Hux looks at him front-on, but it is far easier now to see the monster if he so wishes. Hux no longer has to look quite out of the corner of his eye -- if he looks hard enough, the monster is _right there_ , grinning back at him. Proud and terrifying and _his_.

He wants to look at both monster and man whenever he so chooses.

The first time Hux wakes up in bed (he’s not sure what reality he’s in any more) and finds nothing but a monster next to him, he is perversely delighted. No glistening veil, no shroud of deception. It feels like a gift. Hux takes Kylo’s chin in his hand and presses his lips to Kylo’s in a fervent kiss. An unspoken _thank you._

After that, it happens more frequently.

When they are walking together in the void of Hux’s basement, crossing the endless space in between Hux’s house and -- his other house, he sees Kylo for what he truly is. Beautiful and truly awesome. Like the angels, described in the bible. _Do not be afraid_ , Hux often laughs to himself about the comparison. Anyone in their right mind should be afraid of something like Kylo Ren. It speaks volumes, perhaps, that Hux no longer is.

Hux’s eyes have adjusted to the inky darkness in a way they hadn’t before -- he wonders how much of that is Kylo’s doing and how much of it is exposure. Is Kylo revealing more and more of himself, or is Hux being changed by his contact with the void?

He doesn’t know. And he isn’t quite sure he is ready to ask.

In the darkness, he still sees the shapes in the space beyond. There are creatures there like Kylo, hovering on the periphery. Right at the edge of the horizon. Black against black against black. Slowly, with time, the edge closer. With each passing trip into the void, they come more into focus. As they grow bolder, Hux practically walks among their ranks, walking through them like a parting sea. When they get close enough, Hux can see why they shy away -- they are each smaller than Kylo’s great and hulking form, less dark, less glorious. Kylo is made of eyes and teeth and tendrils of blackness seeping out into the space around him. Here, in the void, he towers tall and imposing and terrifying. Even more so than in Hux’s house. And so, they shy away, knowing not to get close to something stronger. It is a simple instinct of prey around predator. Inborn and impulsive.

It is pleasing to see that Kylo Ren is a monster among his own kind. Or, perhaps, he is the same -- just stronger, better. Regardless, it’s hard for Hux not to feel a bit of pride at the command and fear he carries with him.

It is easy to walk beside Kylo, hands grasped tightly as they traverse the planes of reality, fingers intertwined.

It is also shockingly easy for Hux to drop said hand, to walk alongside him with no tether.  

Kylo allows it, but stays close. The second Hux’s fingers drop from Kylo’s hand, Hux sucks in a breath. The darkness, which had once felt cloying and close, merely laps around his feet like passing waves. It cleaves apart for him, so easily and fluidly, that Hux cannot help but feel like he is walking through a dream that bends to his own whims. The creatures around them stay at bay. His arm glows red next to him, illuminating the fronds and wisps of dark that fold around them as Hux matches Kylo’s stride, pace for pace.

\--

Hux blinks and the calendar tells him that two weeks have passed.

Hux blinks, and there is snow falling coating the ground.

Hux blinks, and small buds are appearing on the forsythia next to his door.

\--

After a while, Hux runs out of excuses at work. He also runs out of energy to _care_ about said excuses.

“Jury duty. Grand jury duty, actually. No, I’m not sure how long it will take.”

“My cat had kittens. It was a very complicated delivery. Are you by any chance interested in cat ownership?” He knows they aren’t.

“Neighborhood flooding. I couldn’t leave my home and my internet connection was out.”

“Mm, yes. I had to donate a kidney to a relative,” he tells HR. “I’m still recovering. It was a very last minute procedure. I have a scar to prove it, if you’d like a picture.” They say no. He is absolutely sure they don’t believe him, as they don’t even ask for his records.

They’re likely in the process of firing him, but he knows his contract is complicated. There are a lot of hoops to jump through. It gives Hux some time. For what -- he’s not sure -- but it gives him some time regardless.

He tells Kylo as much over a cup of coffee while they are lounging in the landscape of his bed. They’ve been lost in it for hours, exploring the sloping terrain of blankets and bodies. Losing their way and then finding it again. It’s a better way to spend his time, Hux thinks, than anything work could provide. Or even worrying about work. He’d much rather worry about mapping the constellations of Kylo’s moles, of memorizing the contour of his spine. He wants to commit everything perfectly to memory, even the parts of the monster that are far harder to focus on. The monster is Hux’s too, and he will remember it the same.

“What will you do, if they fire you?” Kylo asks. At this point, it’s sort of a forgone conclusion.

“I don’t know,” Hux truly doesn’t. But he also cannot bring himself to _care_ , even though he knows that he should. It’s just that, now, with his worldview entirely and drastically changed, he cannot fathom the importance of tedious work for a regular income. It just seems so dull. So unimportant. If he doesn’t enjoy it, he shouldn’t _do it_. Not when he can spend his days with Kylo, existing in a world where he and Millicent are the only beings with beating hearts.

That is far more appealing.

Hux isn’t sure if it’s coincidence, or something broadcast about the sentiment, but Kylo leans forward and kisses him, slow and lazy. Hux can feel the smile of his teeth against his lips. A threat, but somehow not a threat at all. Even his instincts are now lax: Hux knows he is not in danger around Kylo Ren.

Even as Hux slides his tongue along Kylo’s sharp teeth, finding the points and ridges, the serrations that shouldn’t be there, he cannot seem to find the spark of fear within his body that he has gotten so used to. Instead, he melts into the kiss, finally pulling Kylo down on top of him, grasping him by the shirt and biting Kylo’s lip until it bleeds something that tastes like copper and ash.

“I don’t know,” Hux repeats again, licking his lips and pressing his forehead to Kylo’s. When he lives with a creature that can bend space, time, and reality to his own whims -- why is any of it important anymore?

It isn’t. Hux knows it.

And Kylo knows it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end is neigh! thank you all for bearing with me for how long it took me to update this. seasonal affective is a bitch, so i barely get anything done in the winter months. also, i'm not so good at finishing things once the ending is in sight -- so that's also a thing.
> 
> just one chapter (and a short epilogue) left.


	11. Chapter 11

Life continues.

Hux makes himself crepes for breakfast. Sometimes, he buys fruit for them at the farmers market, and sometimes he finds fresh fruits waiting for him in his fridge. The peaches and raspberries are his favorites, as well as the ones he can neither name nor identify. He should't eat the strange, sweet and tangy fruits he finds in his fridge that Kylo has left for him, but he finds himself doing it anyway. Against his better judgement.

He makes tea. He makes his own and drinks the teas that Kylo gives him. Hux starts drinking them more decadently, with cream and sugar, because it makes him feel more alive.  _Why not_ , he thinks to himself.  _Why not live a little?_

He works, but only when he feels like it. He so rarely checks his emails and almost never checks his phone. He finishes spreadsheets and compiles lists. He files those away, opposed to sending them along in the right directions. Staying busy is good, is worthwhile just to keep his brain active, but he has no desire to share his accomplishments. It doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things.

Nothing really matters in the grand scheme of things.

\--

It’s not that Kylo is ignoring Hux. It’s just that the monster hasn’t been around as much. Not loitering on Hux’s couch, not taking up residence in his bathroom mirror, not even skulking in the too-long shadows creeping through across his living space.

He’s been _busy, Hux_ , or so he’d said in Hux’s ear, in a moment where Hux had been drifting between awake and asleep. He’d barely registered Kylo there, but he still remembers the feeling of lips against his forehead, of fingers running through his hair. Tender, in the painful, bruising sort of way that Kylo always is.

It’s not necessarily that Hux appreciates being hassled and watched all the time, but he’s certainly grown used to it. He doesn’t even remember how long it’s been since Kylo had crept into his life -- it just feels like forever, at this point.

It’s only natural that Hux would get a little lonely.

Maybe this is what it’s like for Kylo, all alone in the darkness. Hux is just in a house, in a regular reality where he leaves and goes to work on occasion. Where he sees people and people see him. In Kylo’s reality -- well, he’s not entirely alone, but it seems different. The figures Hux saw in the darkness -- they didn’t seem quite as tangible to him, Not nearly as appealing as Kylo Ren. That must be how Kylo felt as well -- that they weren’t worth his time or his attention.

Hux stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He leans close, bares his teeth. It follows him, always a split second behind, now. It’s eyes are almost familiar. Not because they are his own, really, but because he sees the faux-reflection so often, now. It’s him, he thinks, just another twisted, contorted version of himself. It’s more that than it is one of those shadows in Kylo’s darkness, anyway. Maybe, it truly _is_ him -- just in a different reality, looking in. Time, Hux thinks, is a little messed up. It has been for a while, now.

Hux runs his tongue over his teeth. They feel less pointed than they look in the mirror.

\--

Hux is _bored_.

He tries the feeling on for size, letting it swarm over his skin like he knows it must. It pulls restless energy into his veins, claws at his muscles. It does not give up when Hux tries caffeine, or sleep, or a jog around the block. That, somehow, makes it infinitely worse.

The itching restlessness in his chest cavity burns like acid. It feels very _Kylo Ren_.

It’s not surprising to find that he feels this way, that he feels Kylo Ren seeping into his bones.

It was only a matter of time, Hux thinks.

\--

Days pass, and still Hux is bored. Kylo pops in to sleep, diagonal across Hux’s bed.

“Where’ve you been,” Hux asks one morning, running his fingers over Kylo’s abdominal muscles. He traces the shape of them, wonders why they’re there in the first place. The answer is absurdly simple, Hux knows: for him. Everything, to some extent, is for him.

“Around,” Kylo says with a smile. With many smiles.

Hux can feel himself smiling, too.

“I’ve missed you,” Hux finds himself saying. He immediately wants to take back the lie, the gross exaggeration, but he can’t. It’s true, at least to some extent: he has missed Kylo. Months ago, he never would have lamented the monster’s absence, nor would he have spoken the feeling out loud. Now, Hux barely recognizes the space inside his own head, the shape of his own thoughts. His mind is vast and dark, and full of so many sharp edges.

He is getting used to the jagged, malicious terrain of it. Just like he is getting used to the darkness, Hux thinks.

“You missed me,” Kylo Ren echoes.

In the blink of an eye and with inhuman grace, Kylo flips himself and traps Hux underneath him. Pinning him. Kylo grins down at Hux, whose back is flat against the mattress. The words echo around him, a constant reminder of the pitfalls and failures of his own emotions. He should feel trapped, should feel guilty -- but he doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to.

“I suppose you have a certain kind of charm,” Hux says, and runs his hand back over Kylo’s torso. His skin is smooth, soft. It reminds Hux of silky darkness. Of closing his eyes and succumbing to the gentle embrace of unconsciousness.

“Do I?” Kylo catches Hux’s lips in a kiss. It tastes like soot. Like honey.

“It was quiet without you here.” It’s as close as Hux can get to saying that he was bored without Kylo Ren around. After all, he’s not specifically trying to feed the monster’s ego.

“You missed me,” Kylo repeats, sounding charmed and proud. He kisses over every inch of Hux’s skin he uncovers as he slowly peels off Hux’s clothes. Hux lets him, feeling lazy and pampered underneath the monster. If Kylo wants to do all the work, Hux has no objections. Besides, he likes the way Kylo looks at him like he’s a precious thing, like a diamond, or a galaxy, or a light in the darkness.

Kylo worships him, adorning Hux’s body with kisses and small bruises from hungry teeth until Hux is squirming and begging underneath him.

“Going to open you up,” Kylo says in Hux’s ear, snaking a huge hand down his thigh. “Going to take you, going to make you mine.” Hux shivers. He imagines it, like it’s happened before. Kylo opening him up, fucking him thoroughly. Until he’s full and shaking and falling apart. It’s blissful, Hux knows. But --

\-- but he knows he can have more. That Kylo would let him have anything. Everything.

It’s too tempting a thought to resist.

“Or,” Hux says, tugging at Kylo’s lip in his teeth. Kylo groans, wet and needy. “I could take you.” Hux rolls his hips up against Kylo’s body, grinding against him.

“Hux,” Kylo groans. Hux can feel the full body shiver that travels down Kylo’s spine. The lights flicker, the room fades a bit into nothingness. For a moment, everything is static in Hux’s ears.

Hux flips them, taking Kylo unaware. It feels good to press Kylo down against the sheets, to crowd against him, to take control.

“You could,” Kylo pants, hips bucking upward to grind that impossible length against Hux’s body, against his thigh. “You could take me,” he says, like he’s never imagined it before. Like the opportunity has just arisen like a gift. Daft, Hux thinks, to not think of the endless possibilities between them.

Hux takes a moment to wrap his hand around Kylo’s ridiculous cock, just to appreciate the feel of him in his hand. To admire the way that Kylo Ren, the monster, folds underneath Hux’s attentions. His eyes close and his defences drop. His entire existence flickers as Hux strokes him.

Hux plays with him, thumbing over the slit at the top of Kylo’s twisting length until he is dripping, until Kylo is begging and whimpering.

This power, the power to render a monster helpless, is intoxicating. He could do this for hours, could take Kylo apart until he was in pieces underneath Hux. Until only Hux could put him back together again.

However, his resolve thins when Kylo takes Hux’s cock in his hand. Kylo’s fingers are long and deft, and he always seems to know the perfect way to touch Hux to pull apart his willpower piece by piece.

“Fuck me,” Kylo says. “Fill me,” he pleads.

And Hux can do nothing but oblige.

The first press into Kylo’s body is overwhelming. Hux expects resistance, but the slide is so easy and slick. It’s decadent, like a rich dessert or a warm evening by the sea. Kylo’s heat subsumes him, takes him in completely and with no regret. Hux shudders and groans, burying his face in Kylo’s neck as he seats himself fully. He’s never felt so blissfully ensconced before, like his whole soul is inside Kylo’s existence. It’s overwhelming. It’s breathtaking.

He’s never before been a part of something so beautiful, so truly perfect.

“I’m going to make you mine,” Hux says. Kylo groans. Hux feels that the words fit well in his mouth, on his tongue. The shape of them in his head is appealing. Kylo is his, has been for ages now. It was only a matter of time before Hux fully accepted the reality. At this point, their realities have intertwined, have burned together as one. Without Kylo, Hux’s life is boring, meaningless, and adrift. Without Hux, Kylo is empty and lonely, at an entire loss. It makes Hux feel better, knowing that they are a complete set. That without him, Kylo would be lost.

Kylo, and all of his endless power, lays stretched out under Hux -- pliant and wanting. He’d be willing to take anything that Hux wished to give him. It’s a heady feeling.

The moment of time stretches on, folding itself into the fibers of Hux’s existence, writing itself into his bones.

Kylo is hot and tight around him. It is all-encompassing. Exhilarating.

It feels so good. There’s no other way to put it. Nothing more profound, nothing more poetic. It’s just _good_. So good.

“Oh god,” Hux says, because if there were a god, if he believed in one, he would be calling out to them now. It only seems fitting. Time stretches and Hux holds onto it, never wanting the moment to be through. This one single, solitary moment of perfection.

“Move,” Kylo says. His voice is soft and his lips brush gently against Hux’s hair. His breath is hot against Hux’s scalp. The moment is tender, weighty.

Hux moves.

He loses himself for a moment, too adrift in the pleasure, in the sensations. It is overwhelming, but not. Too much, but not. It’s eternity, the universe -- it’s everything, woven together into one.

Hux fucks into the depths of Kylo, unmoored and adored. He can feel Kylo clawing at his back, begging, pleading, crying for more.

Hux gives it to him.

Again and again and again -- harder and faster and --

More, and more, and more, until Hux can no longer find reality for himself. Until he finds only darkness around them both. Stretching out for miles and miles in every direction. Wrapping around each of them, like tendrils, like tethers, like wings.

“I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” Hux pants, kissing Kylo like he can no longer breathe. Kylo has to know, has to know that Hux has been lost without him, has been floundering for an anchor.

“You’re everything,” Kylo says, and pulls him even deeper into the depths of the darkness around him. For a moment, Hux feels like he’s choking, like he can’t breathe. “Everything, Hux.”

Kylo pulls him down,

    and down,

         -- and down.

\--

The boredom does not abate. Even with Kylo’s visits, as sporadic as they may be, it grows. It nips at Hux’s heels like his shadow, constantly in pursuit.

He does not leave the house. It only makes his legs ache more.

\--

Hux stands at the top of the stairs to the basement, looking down. It’s dark. He cannot see past the third step. After that, they fade quickly into nothingness.

“Kylo,” he says. It’s like speaking over freshly fallen snow. The void eats his words, muffling them in his own ears. He balances himself on the door frame. “Kylo,” he tries again, but louder.

Nothing.

He tries again. Tries shouting. It all sounds the same.

\--

Hux wonders faintly if he could peel off his own skin -- if perhaps that would abate the crawling itch in him, at least for a little while. He knows that he is not Kylo, not a creature made from sheer willpower alone -- that he cannot destroy his body so. Hux knows that he would find only blood and tissue underneath the skin, not a great expanse of nothingness instead. He would not mend instantaneously, nor would he find any relief in the action.

He imagines it all the same.

The television has been stuck on static for days.

It sounds like the sea.

The ceiling looks like static when Hux stares at it for too long.

Millicent crawls into his lap and there is a small modicum of comfort in that. The heat of her body is warm against him and the pressure from her tiny paws is grounding. In the boring world of his house, she is a pleasant solace.

Hux wonders if that’s how Kylo feels, about him.

Annoyance bubbles in his gut, unbidden and unwelcome. Hux _misses_ Kylo. He is frustrated that Kylo is not there, that Kylo left him alone, that Kylo is simply absent from the house, even though the shadows of him remain. Nothing here is untouched by Kylo -- everything bears the spirit of him, the touch of him. Everything is too dark. Too full of metaphorical teeth.

Millicent rearranges herself next to him. For a while, she dozes. Hux stares at the cracks in the ceiling. Some of them are microscopic. Some of them are oceans wide, leaking time and space between them.

When Hux stands, Millicent trills and opens her eyes, annoyed at the disturbance of his weight from the cushion. “Sorry,” he says, swiping a hand over her soft head. “I won’t be gone long. Go back to sleep.”

Before he can think think better of it, Hux follows his feet to the basement stairs. They carry him there unbidden, but he can already feel the steady yearning in his bones dulling, slightly. He is going in the right direction, he thinks. Instead of stretching his legs outside, he will simply do it inside.

He has made the trip with Kylo countless times before.

Each time, the journey between _here_ and _there_ gets a little shorter, a little easier. A little lighter, as Hux’s eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. With Kylo next to him, the trips leave Hux without fear or hesitation. The last few times they’ve gone, Hux hadn’t even needed to hold Kylo’s hand. He had crossed the void in his basement entirely by himself, even though his footsteps had fallen into time with Kylo’s.

It’s the final step, Hux thinks. The final step in securing his fate. He has already accepted this reality -- he simply must seal the deal. It feels right. Right?

He steadies himself on the basement door-frame. There’s no point in calling down -- he knows Kylo will not answer him.

The stairs leading to the basement are already dark, beckoning him. His name floats past his ears.

Millicent is asleep on the couch, Hux thinks. Safe and sound. She’ll be fine if he’s gone for just a little while.

Slowly, he descends.

Alone, it is strangely easier. The solid presence of Kylo next to him is steadying, but also distracting. Now, Hux can devote his entire focus, all of his attention, at the sensation of his descent. It is like submerging himself into the still waters of a pool -- sun warmed at the surface and colder underneath.

Each step takes less effort than the previous.

Still, Hux has to steady his breathing to fight off the panic rising in him like the tide, steady and unstoppable. His body knows that this is not natural. His mind knows this even more. Still, he continues down.

There are always twelve steps that lead from his kitchen to his basement. Always twelve familiar ones. On his trips into the darkness, there are often more. Sometimes, there are thirteen. Sometimes a hundred. Sometimes, Hux climbs down, only to realize he is climbing up again. Sometimes, like today, he realizes he feels like he is spiraling downward, like sinking into the still air of a tomb.

After what feels like a short eternity, Hux finds himself at the bottom of the stairs. He feels a bit dizzy, like he did truly spiral down them -- around and around and around.

He takes a breath.

Lets it out.

The shadows dip cold into his throat, sending chilled tendrils through his ribcage. They wrap lazily like silk ribbons around his spine.

The darkness surrounds him like a blanket, stretching out in every direction -- a vast ocean of it around him. There is no horizon line, no differentiation between land, sea, and air. The only light comes from the faint glowing of Kylo’s handprint on his arm.

Hux turns and looks behind him, glancing up the steep mountain of the stairs, the cliff-face that it is. Above and so far away is the dim light from his kitchen. It illuminates some of the steps -- just enough that he could ascend them again immediately if he so chose. A beacon, in the darkness. But he won’t. Hux came down here for a reason -- to find Kylo Ren, to wash the deadly tingling in his limbs. He needs to stretch his legs, needs to walk, needs to traverse this plane.

He’s done it before without holding Kylo’s hand, untethered and unmoored..

He can do it again.

Hux turns, takes one breath to steady himself, and begins walking.

One foot, after the other, after the other, after the other.

Into the black darkness in front of him.

Hux knows from previous experiences that it is a straight line from his basement to _there_ \-- wherever it is that Kylo takes him. The place that is his house, but is also not his house. All he has to do is walk forward.

Each time, lately, the distance has seemed shorter and shorter. Now, however, Hux finds himself wondering just how much further he needs to walk.

So, he continues forward. Minutes pass -- maybe even hours. Time is a difficult thing to hold onto in this place. Strange and foreign and out of place. It often slips through Hux’s fingertips here, right after coiling around him like a snake constricting its prey.

Time passes. An amount of it. Breaths of it. The heavy thud of heartbeats of it. Until the itch in Hux’s bones fades into only a dull, miniscule ache.

Until the darkness feels less like the caress of water and more like the kiss of air.

Hux walks. Further and farther.

He walks until the nagging, electric doubt inside his chest finally grows too loud to ignore.

It couldn’t possibly be this far. _Could it?_

It very well could. Hux keeps walking.

But what if he’s passed it? What if he has just been wandering deeper into the depths of the void, entangling himself in it until he’s lost forever? No. _No_ \-- Hux thinks, Kylo would find him, Kylo would keep him safe. Kylo would protect him from --

\-- the creatures in the darkness.

How had Hux forgotten?

He stops, halting his momentum and progress, and stands very still. He takes one long breath, centering himself, before he allows himself to look around. He is acutely aware of the panic threatening to boil over in his chest, but he will not allow it. Not even when he realizes just how close the creatures in the darkness are.

They’re _right there_. How had he not noticed them before?

Hux had been so focused on walking forward, on getting to his destination, that he’d forgotten that he was not alone. That he was _never_ alone.

The shadows are right in front of him, on either side, behind him. Hux turns and turns to look. None of them are close enough to touch, but he is surrounded, boxed in. He can’t make out any eyes or teeth, just shapes in the darkness -- blacker than black, rougher than the smooth terrain of the void. They stand out, now that Hux is looking for them.

Fear and panic flare inside him. For a moment, all his body wants to do is _run_. But Hux knows better to run from predators, knows better than to make himself prey. He is terrified, for a split second -- but he cannot be. So, he forces the feeling down, deep within his gut.

The red glow from his arm illuminates his own features, he’s sure of it, but it does little to light his inquisitive stalkers. When Hux ignores the pounding in his chest and takes one aggressive stride forward with no warning, they scatter. Like broken pool balls, in every direction.

Hux waits.

It doesn’t take long for them to come creeping back, until they’re just out of reach again. Like moths, drawn to flame. There is bubble of nothingness around Hux -- and then, the creatures. He doesn’t know how many there are -- too many to count, the shapes too indistinguishable. None of them will come any closer than a couple feet, just out of reach, but they will also not stray too much farther, either.

He takes a deep breath. He can hear it, echoing in the nothingness around him. The sound, muffled and yet so loud. The creatures, the _things_ \-- they make no noise. They dampen it, draw it in, just like they do the light, Hux supposes. Black holes. It’s strange. It’s terrifying. It’s, above all else -- annoying.

Annoying, just like everything else about Hux’s new reality.

Frustration has never been an emotion Hux had a good grasp on.

Hux takes a step again. They move with him. Three steps, and they follow. Synchronized.

They are not attacking, so Hux deems them not a threat, despite his residual fear. He will just have to learn to appreciate his new companions, just as he has learned to appreciate Kylo Ren. Well -- perhaps not quite that much. But he will accept them and their presences, if they so steadfastly refuse to leave.

If Hux feints sideways out of sheer spite, just to startle the things, and they scatter once more with a delightful sort of shuffling, then no one is any the wiser. Besides, he thinks, baring his teeth at the darkness around him, he must put himself in charge. He’s not prey, not some easy-pickings on the side of the road. No -- if this is Hux’s new normal, then he will certainly be bowing to no one and nothing.

Unfortunately, now that that is settled, Hux is brought back to the task at hand.

Finding Kylo. Finding the _other place_.

He has a goal, and he will make it happen.

He blinks into the blackness around him.

Alright -- that would be a fine plan, it would be. Except -- except he has completely turned himself around.

All Hux had to do was go from point A to point B, one single and solid straight line between them. He’s walked it a hundred times with Kylo. Sometimes the distance is shorter, sometimes it is farther, but it is always a straight shot there.

He had done that, but had gotten nowhere. Or -- somewhere, but not where he wanted to be. And now, with his little skirmish with the creatures, Hux has spun on his heel too many times to be able to tell what direction is the way he came from.

Hux squints into the darkness. But, besides the shapes and figures around him, he can see nothing.

Nothing, at all.

He spins slowly in a circle, trying to survey the terrain to the best of his ability. At this point, it doesn’t really matter if he loses his footing, his direction. He doesn’t know which way is forward, which is back -- which is up, or which is down. It doesn’t help, anyway. There’s nothing, absolutely _nothing_ in any direction.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hux says into the endless darkness, before he picks a direction and starts walking.

\--

Hux banks on hours. He has prepared himself for miles of endless trekking forward. Or backward. Or whatever direction it is that he’s walking.

It’s more like minutes, until he finds something. Maybe ten, maybe twenty. Maybe even just a couple. However long, it feels like he just started walking. He can see something in the distance, just a bit off to the left -- so he heads towards it. It’s light, maybe. It’s hard to tell with nothing around -- his eyes like to play tricks on him in the void.

The only thing Hux can ever be sure of is himself. He has learned to trust his mind well enough now to not write this off as a delusion. He can’t help but think back to the days that he was idly hoping for something like that. Now, he knows that is too much to ask. It’s also not something he necessarily _wants_. Hux has accepted his reality, accepted all the baggage that comes with it.

He could do without this, though -- the being lost in a place that is now his. This is definitely something he can live without.

Hux draws closer and closer to what he saw in the distance.

When he gets close enough, he can see the towering structure for what it is: a staircase.

Thank god.

It looks similar, he thinks, to his own staircase, accounting for all inconsistencies between each trip he’s taken here. It’s never the same, but it’s always familiar. Hux thinks this one looks familiar too.

When he looks around, behind him, on the creatures that have been following him, they have drawn back. It’s fair, he thinks -- he’s never seen any of them near the stairs before. They are always off in the middle distance, in the nothingness. They don’t dare creep close to the ways in or out of their plane of existence. Hux wonders, idly, if they simply can’t get any closer, or that they _won’t_. He’ll have to ask Kylo -- once Hux has given him a piece of his mind.

The stairs look familiar enough for Hux to nod and begin climbing. Besides -- they must be the right ones. They’ve never passed by any other stairs. There’s just the two sets he’s seen -- his own, and the other. He takes them slowly, cautiously, climbing toward the faint light at the top that illuminates each step.

After about a dozen steps, he pauses, faltering. He is no closer to the top of the stairs, but something makes him turn. Just a small, furtive glance to the side.

He isn’t sure why he looks out into the darkness -- he knows there’s nothing there for him to find -- but he does anyway.

When Hux looks out, he sees the impossible: two other sets of stairs. They are so nearby he thinks he could maybe jump to them, if he could manage to get a running start.

That’s no good. That’s no good _at all_.

In all his time down here, he’s never seen another set of stairs. Now, there are three, all within such a close distance to one another.

Hux swallows. He hears the click in his throat as loud as a gunshot in the deafening silence of the place.

He looks back up at the light at the top of the set of stairs he is on. It’s closer than he thought. Closer than it had been only moments ago. It’s just a sliver of light, a cracked door. Hux watches, rapt, as the sliver of light shifts, like it’s caught in a breeze. Like someone brushed against the door creating it. Then, it widens. It happens fast. First, there is just the sliver of light, then, it is as bright as the sun.

Blinding.

He knows one thing for certain: that is not his kitchen.

Hux spins. Before he can think, he is thundering down the stairs and away from the light. Toward the darkness and its comforting, welcoming embrace.

The stairwell stretches long in front of him, but he presses on, running as fast as he can downward, until it is darker and darker and darker. When he finally hits flat ground, he is panting, legs sore and unsteady underneath him. He only take a few strides away from the staircase, feeling safe in the nothingness around him.

When he turns to look up, the light is still there -- but faint, and so far up. His heartbeat thunders in his chest, thunder in his ears. He cannot help but stare.

Gradually, the light dims. The wide rectangle of the open door lessens until it is just a crack once again.

Hux looks at the other two sets of stairs. He can see them now, so easily, even though he feels like he’s been blinded by the light. He’s not sure why he couldn’t see them before.

_No_ , he thinks.  None of these are the stairs he is looking for.

\--

Hux keeps walking.

Just how large is this world, Hux wonders. As big as a city, the country, his continent? As the planet? Is it even round -- will he eventually loop back around to where he’s been before? Will he drop off the edge of it at some point, if he wanders too close to the cliff?

Or, perhaps more likely, does it simply not function in a way he can truly grasp? His own knowledge of the universe is too limited, too narrow.

Perhaps this world simply _is_.

What exists exists when it wishes to. When it does not, it does not. Everything is looped and spiraled and overlaid -- constantly changing and shifting beneath his very feet.

\--

Hux passes countless sets of stairs. They loom in the distance like spires, like mountains, like bolts of lightning.

He does not take any of them.

\--

Hux does not know where he is going, what his destination truly is. He simply walks.

He should be angry, frustrated, annoyed -- but he cannot find anything in himself other than amusement and quiet intrigue. The existence of other stairs makes this plane of existence even more fascinating than before. It makes sense -- he isn’t sure why he never considered it before being presented with the reality of it. It poses even more questions -- like what would happen if Hux went up those stairs and into someone else’s house, if they even lead to a house at all. Would they lead him to his neighborhood, or a different country? Or, would they lead him to somewhere else in the universe entirely?

The possibilities are endless.

Would whoever opened that door have seen Hux as he is, or would they have seen something else entirely?

Did they see -- or hear -- him fleeing down the stairs?

He looks down at his arm, still glowing red with Kylo Ren’s hand print. He traces his fingers over it, not necessarily feeling _tired_ , but ready to be home. He has so many questions to ask Kylo, so many things to figure out and explore.

The curiosity is overwhelming, too hard to ignore.

Hux barely feels like he is walking anymore, though he can feel himself pressing forward. If he concentrates hard enough, he can feel the muscles in his legs urging him on, working to keep his feet stepping one in front of the other.

He barely notices when, towering right in front of him, seems to suddenly appear a set of stairs.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about them, nothing distinct or identifying -- but Hux simply knows. He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are his own stairs. They will lead to his kitchen, no matter how long or arduous the climb.

He climbs without hesitation.

There are twelve solid steps. Twelve steps, and Hux is walking easily through the door to his own kitchen. The tiles are bright and clean, and mid-morning light shines through the window above the sink, illuminating the entire room with the softness of mornings.

He turns and looks behind him at the basement stairs, thinking briefly of some myth he read ages ago about not looking back. Never looking over your shoulder. He doesn’t remember the name -- can only pull at threads of it. Love, and walking, and a tunnel from deep within the darkness of the underworld. The thought is pushed to the side when he sees his stairs as normal, not cloaked in unnatural shadow. If he lets his eyes adjust enough to the dimness, he can even see the boring basement carpet.

Hux smiles, feeling the relief wash over him.

He makes himself a cup of tea, with decadent cream and sugar, and takes it into the living room.

Kylo is there, sprawled lazily in a chair, reading. Millicent is where Hux left her on the couch.

The cat cracks open an eye when Hux sits down.

The monster looks up with a grin and sets his book down firmly on the table. Hux wasn’t expecting him, but it’s a pleasant surprise.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Kylo says. Hux missed the sound of his voice. Missed the way that rooms feel when Kylo is in them.

“I live here.”

Kylo smiles, big and wide. So many beautiful teeth. He leans forward and catches Hux in a kiss.

“So it seems.”


	12. epilogue

A key, turning in the lock.

The click of a deadbolt.

The front door, swinging open to let in the crisp breeze that comes after a short rain.

“You’ll love the place, I promise,” a voice says, as two people push through the open door. First, a woman, then a man. A third person, another man, slips in after both of them, furtively shutting the door behind them. He holds the keys to the house in his hands.

They all scuff the water and mud off their shoes on the cheap mat in front of the door.

“You know I’m not strictly supposed to even be showing you this, but I had to,” the man with the keys says.

“Thank you Poe,” the woman says. “We really appreciate it.”

“So, as you know,” Poe says, gesturing at the walls, the space. “These are post-war, mid-century townhomes, originally built to be rentals for government workers or veterans. This was one of many such communities in the area. These were refurbished in the 1970’s and then sold individually.”

They walk from the entryway into the living room, taking in the well-lit space. The back door opens onto a nice patio, a fenced-in garden. The rooms are empty, but the walls are painted nicely -- a soft grey that someone with a good eye must have chosen.

“I gotta ask -- why’s this in foreclosure?” The first man asks. “This isn’t really what I expected of a foreclosure -- it’s so _nice_.”

The woman pushes at his shoulder. “ _Finn_ ,” she warns. “That’s probably confidential.”

“Sorry,” Finn says.

“Nah, buddy, it’s fine. It’s actually not confidential,” Poe explains. “But let me show you the place, and then I’ll explain. It’s kind of a long story.”

They start in the living room, moving around the cozy, but bright space. Poe points out where the dining space is usually kept in these houses, how people typically set up their couches and televisions. They glance out the wide back windows and through the door at the patio, at the overgrown garden with so much potential.

“Rey, you’d love working this garden. I can see it now: so many flowers. Oh, and I could plant some vegetables,” Finn says.

The woman, Rey, grins.

From there, they go upstairs. There are three bedrooms to explore and a small, but sufficient bathroom.

“The master bedroom is on the smaller side, but it’s still pretty average for homes of this era,” Poe says. “The other two bedrooms are noticeably small, I’m not going to lie. But they get great light and are certainly workable. Some of the houses have knocked out the wall between the two smaller rooms and made one larger bedroom, but most people use them as either studies or nurseries.”

Rey laughs at the last bit, and so does Finn. “Well, _that’s_ a ways away.”

They each duck into the bathroom. There’s really only space for one person, but it’s just fine.

“This house has good bones,” Finn says at the top of the stairs. He puts a hand on the wall, feeling it underneath his flat palm. “It’s very quiet in here. Still. I like it.”

“I like it too,” Rey says.

“Come on,” Poe says, clapping them both on the shoulders. “You haven’t even seen the kitchen or the basement.

The kitchen is newly remodeled.“Right before the last owner bought the place,” Poe tells them. It’s on the smaller side, but functional and airy. It’s definitely enough space for two cooks to try and butt heads, if needs be. They funnel into the basement after Poe, eager to find places for storage. Before she descends the stairs, Rey glances around the kitchen, imagining a life in this place. It isn’t hard. She smiles, turns, and then follows Finn and Poe down the stairs.

The basement is average -- nothing to write home about -- but finished, and nice. Dry, too. Beige and boring in a pleasant sort of way, and perfect for storage. Finn suggests putting a couch down there and Poe recommends making it a big one, great for parties. It’s a good plan.

Rey leads the way upstairs, but pauses in the doorway at the top of the steps, eyes on something in the kitchen.

“Rey?” Finn asks from behind her, concern evident in his voice.

“It’s fine,” she says, softer than usual. Finn and Poe shift behind her, anxious.

“Hello,” Rey says, creeping forward past the doorway and into the kitchen.

When Finn makes it past the door, moving slow and carefully because Rey had, he spots what has her attention. A small tabby cat, sitting square in the middle of the kitchen. Rey is in a squat, hand outstretched toward the cat.

“How did you get in here?” Rey asks the cat in the same soft voice.

When Poe makes it to the top of the stairs, he just laughs, leaning against the counter. “Oh, the cat. Yeah, she just -- ends up in here sometimes, apparently. She belonged to the previous owner.”

The cat moves forward, butting her head against Rey’s hand. “You’re very soft,” Rey says, running a hand over the cat’s coat. “And clean, for a stray.”

“You said you’d tell us about the previous owner,” Finn says, turning his attention to Poe.

“Oh,” Poe says, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Well, it’s kind of a mystery. The previous owner just up and disappeared. He was a contractor for the government and was always prompt with his bills. He seemed very on top of things, from what everyone has said. Very involved with the house, too. He took really great care of it. Until -- well, apparently he just started not being around. He started working sporadically, being away for long periods of time, and generally being uncontactable. And then, one day, he just stopped. He stopped showing up at work, stopped answering his emails or his phone, and stopped paying his bills. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him since. The bank repossessed his house, took all of his things. There’s currently a missing persons case out on him, but no one expects to see him ever again. He’s just -- gone.”

Both Finn and Rey are looking at Poe now, mouths agape. The cat meows.

“If you’re interested in the place, you’ll hear more about it at the auction. It’s something that the bank has an obligation to tell the future owners -- in case the guy does show up, one day. It happens, but it’s rare.”

“Makes sense,” Rey says.

Finn continues to make a face.

“No foul play suspected,” Poe reassures. “Sometimes people just disappear. Maybe he’ll show up one day, but honestly? He probably lives hundreds of miles away by now, happily, under an alias.”

Finn nods, slowly. “Alright. I’m just saying, I’m not having someone show up at my my house in the middle of the night, demanding that it’s theirs.”

“You gotta win the auction first, buddy. Then, you can worry about that all you want.” Poe grins, then loops an arm around Finn’s shoulders, “but I promise it’ll be fine. You’ll never see the guy, I’d bet my everything on that. Really, other than that little mystery, this house is _perfect_ for you guys.”

“It really is,” Rey agrees. She reaches down, scratching at the tabby’s head once again. “Does it come with the cat,” she asks.

“Maybe,” Finn says. “I guess we’ll find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [tumblr](http://brawlite.tumblr.com), if you are so inclined.


End file.
